


Lady Sareh's Mistress

by Aleph (Immatrael), EarthScorpion



Series: Ascensions and Transgressions [3]
Category: Exalted
Genre: F/F, Role-Playing Game, Roleplay Logs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-13 16:18:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 174,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13574259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Immatrael/pseuds/Aleph, https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthScorpion/pseuds/EarthScorpion
Summary: Freshly arrived in An Teng, Keris has yet to find her feet in the service of the Reclamation. And that's not the only thing she must get used to - she has a relationship to settle into, and strange stirrings in her soul that may herald a new arrival.





	1. Chapter 1

Keris is packing for her departure for An Teng. Sasi advised her that it would be best that she be prepared fully for all kinds of things. It is at this point that her butler arrives, telling her that Unquestionable Shashalme requests her presence with all urgency.

Passing the last crate of lead sling pellets she had commissioned from Dulmea’s old supplier - which after considerable agonising are split two ways into blank ones, and ones with “Duck” engraved on them in Old Realm - Keris takes a moment to examine herself in the mirror.

Not bad, she decides, but for a meeting with an Unquestionable? It needs to be better. Her dress ripples into a facsimile of the one she’s come to think of as her flower-goddess dress; all soft pink and deep red carnations broken here and there by vivid fire lilies.

She shifts her earrings into roses to match them, and hurries to follow Mehuni out.

Shashalme is an Unquestionable of Hungry Metagaos - the twelfth soul, if Keris remembers correctly. They’re known as the Scatterer of Seeds - and they are a they, at least when not in their presence. Shashalme has two major aspects, one male and one female, and expects to be addressed correctly based on their aspect at the present time. They dwell outside of the Swamp themselves, in a garden-body which has subsumed a district of Malfeas. Those who eat from the fruit of the garden fall under their sway, and thus they have many demon-slaves who serve their every whim.

It is not a short trip to where the Unquestionable waits. Indeed, even though they sent transport for Keris, she travels for three screams of the tomescu before she arrives, crossing several layers on a great sky-canoe drawn by maggots.

She dismounts the ship with some relief - a day and a half cooped up on the thing wasn’t as bad as the five day trip to Cecelyne on Alveua’s walking pagoda had been, but it still feels good to stretch her legs again. She enters the gardens warily but respectfully, looking around in awe and carefully not touching anything.

The ruins of the Malfean apartments and towers are overgrown and barely visible under the sprawling plants which cover it. It’s humid, and Ligier’s light is cool and pleasant - almost as pleasant as within the Conventicle. Beautiful music plays in the background, from the countless demons who squat all over the ruined structures, under the cover of the plants. The plants for their part blossom with every single kind of fruit Keris has ever seen, and several she hasn’t. The plants each blossom several kinds of fruit.

Keris is shown along the winding paths and overgrown alleys, until she’s welcomed to the central plaza. Here, great piles of treasure are stacked high, bound up under the roots of trees.

And on a throne in the centre, Unquestionable Shashalme waits for Keris. She - and she is a she at the moment - is a tall woman with blood red skin covered in tattoos and jewelry and bracelets of pale petrified wood. Twelve arms sprout from her shoulders and back, and all of them overflow with wealth - it literally drips from her hands. She smiles as Keris bows to her, showing two rows of sharp teeth made of pale wood. Her countless slaves are fanning her with giant leaves.

“Peer Keris Dulmeadokht,” she says. “I thank you for your speed in responding to my request for your presence.” She gestures to an open area of ground in front of her. “Kneel,” she says. Without any words, two slaves move to fan Keris with the leaves too.

Keris kneels. “Honoured Unquestionable,” she says, keeping the shake out of her voice. Shashalme... she’s as strong as the Prince Upon the Tower, but not necessarily inclined to be as friendly. And Keris doesn’t know why she’s summoned her. And if she stumbles like she did with Alveua, the Unquestionable probably won’t take it nearly as well. “How could I fail to heed your request? I came as soon as I got your message.”

Shashalme presses three of her pairs of hands together, looking over them at Keris. “By my understanding,” she says, “you will be taking up residence in An Teng.” It’s an obvious lead-in. “I have certain interests in An Teng, little Keris.”

Keris nods. Okay. Um. Let’s see, what would Sasi do... ah! “I will, my lady,” she agrees, “under Peer Sasimana’s command.” She considers asking flat-out why the Unquestionable isn’t talking to Sasi herself about this, but... well, the only explanation she can think of is that maybe she has, and it didn’t go well. Which means asking would be a bad idea. “You, um, wish me to aid your interests there?” she asks instead, rhetorically.

“Oh, indeed,” Shashalme says. She gestures over her garden and the wealth within. “I am generous beyond belief,” she says. “Look at everything I can give to those who serve me. I pass gifts to any who aid me. My generosity is matched only by my desire. Those who aid me in my desires, I reward. And I desire An Teng.”

Keris blinks, thrown for a moment by the sheer casual audacity of wanting to own an entire city-state. “What? Wait. All of it?” Then she remembers who - and what - she is talking to. “Oh. _Oh_. Of course all of it. That’s...” She bows and scrambles for words. “I... great lady, if you are as generous as you are ambitious, I envy those you favour. Uh. May I ask, when you say you desire An Teng... um, how do you mean? Worship, or control, or...?”

“There is no difference,” Unquestionable Shashalme says, with a six-shouldered shrug. “To adore me is to obey me,” she says, running one hand along the jaw of an adoring slave sitting on the mounds of gold by her throne. “I have given these miserable serfs everything and made them much more than they once were, and so they adore me for it.” She gestures around her. “Take what you will. Slaves, wealth, weapons, whatever you desire. Spread my cults. Slay my foes. You, Keris Dulmeadokht - I chose you for two reasons. I know you will be in An Teng, which is a pleasant place I wish to be mine. But I also know my greater self considers you to have much promise, that you are akin to a little sapling who may one day become a mighty tree. You have learned our lessons well. To aid me is to aid yourself. Am I not generous?”

Keris bows low. Very low. This... this amounts to the personal backing of one of the Unquestionable. Access to... to potentially _anything_ she has, and that is a big, big ‘anything’. And in return, as far as Keris can see, she just has to do more or less what she’d be doing anyway.

She’ll have to mention it to Sasi, of course. But Sasi will understand. It’s not like Keris could say ‘no’.

“Generous beyond my wildest imaginings, my lady,” she agrees. “I will do my very best to meet your expectations of me.”

“I do think we shall get upon marvelously, Little Keris,” Shashelme says, rising from her chair. As she does that, her figure shifts and her skin darkens, until she’s now a man with skin the colour of ebony, in robes which look like they’re made of paper. He has an imperial bearing, and drips with gems and jewels, all in soft organic colours. “My shrines shall be raised high and my worshippers shall see that truly my gifts are without measure compared to the usurper gods.”

Not entirely trusting her voice, Keris nods. “At your will and pleasure, lord,” she agrees, heady with relief, already planning what she can do with the resources this will give her access to. Maybe send someone out to find her hometown! Or learn more Sorcery; potent, powerful spells! Or... or... her mind whirls wildly with the possibilities.

He spreads his arms wide. “As I said,” he says, “take what you will. Am I not generous?”

Keris looks around, evaluating what there seems to be on offer - and what of it will be useful to her in An Teng. “Truly generous, lord,” she murmurs, her head swivelling to take everything in.

Keris remembers at this moment that Shashalme’s generosity is like that of a fruit - seeds of obligation are held within his juicy tenderness and sweetness.

((I had wondered~))

That gives her pause. Not a _lot_ of pause, but some. If she takes anything from here, she’ll be bound and obligated to do what he wants. On the other hand, if she just says “no thank you“, he’ll probably be offended, given how much he’s emphasising his generosity. She frantically thinks back to Sasi’s lessons... ah! She just needs an excuse for why she can’t take anything right now. And Sasi also gives her a reason.

... it’s still kind of tempting to go grab things anyway. Especially... oh, _oh_ , that _spear_ that one of the slaves is offering. So _pretty_. _So pretty_... he must have known she used a spear before she came here, to have something like that waiting on offer. But... yeah, if she asks to talk to Sasi first so she doesn’t take anything she doesn’t need...

“Child,” Dulmea warns sharply. “He prides himself on his generosity. That will likely only lead to him telling you to take everything you might need.”

Keris pauses again. ‘Damn,’ she comments silently. ‘You’re right. Uh...’ She wracks her brains, trying to think of another excuse quickly enough that Shashalme doesn’t grow impatient.

((You can roll Reaction + Politics here to think on your feet))   
((oh god yes. I had ‘please, let me come back to you with results before rewarding me, I wouldn’t want to take anything I haven’t earned’ as a backup, but... eurgh. Does the above count as a stunt?))   
((Yes. 2 dice.))   
((Kay, lessee. 5+1+2 Coadj+2 stunt=10. WHAT THE FUCK 2 SUCCESSES AGAIN WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO, DICE FAIRIES?!))

Keris is running a blank.

“Child,” Dulema suggests, “hmm. Perhaps you should find something practical of fairly low value, so he feels he has a hold on you - and something you can pay off.”

Keris nods in relief. ‘Good idea,’ she thinks. ‘Okay, let me see...’ She scans the surroundings; the piles of gold, the slaves - no, she thinks, they’re being paid, after all, so they’re really more like servants - and the lavish artifacts. What does she need, though...

... oh, huh. Well, she has her Cherub Shrine. Another something like that, maybe? It’s expensive, but nowhere near as expensive as something like her Lance is. If need be, she could probably pay for it with... hmm. She mentally weighs the scales, considering the value of a Sorcerous artifact in the eyes of an Unquestionable.

Keris tilts her head enquiringly. He would consider her failing to take something that’s at least a little art of artifice as an insult, unless she took vast amounts of wealth or slaves. She suspects that any slaves she took would still belong to him.

From what she remembers, too, Shashelme appreciates beauty and aesthetics - as this place indicates. He’d probably think better of Keris if she chose something beautiful. Of course, the weapons and armour here are often beautiful too.

((Damn. And I had an idea all lined up, too. Hmm. In that case... something useful, beautiful and which she doesn’t already have.))   
((Hah. Of course, there are other treasures beyond just artifacts.))   
((True, yeah.))   
((Like maps of things which might be hidden in An Teng.))   
((... ooooo~))

Keris thinks it over for some time before an answer comes to her. After a few murmured questions to one of the servants, she is brought a selection of beautifully painted scrolls; as much masterpieces of artwork as they are invaluable references.

All share a common theme. Maps of An Teng. Some are very, very old; made back before the Exalted even existed, in the Time of Glories when Primordials ruled. Others are more recent; painted or drawn using information gleaned from Yozi cults and demons who have slipped free of the prison that is Malfeas.

All are exquisitely done, whatever the medium, and symbols dot them here and there - long-lost secrets now known only by the Yozis and their souls.

“If it pleases you, my lord,” says Keris humbly, “I will take these.”

Keris is half-sure that Shashelme is actually genuinely both very amused and _pleased_ with her. She picks them up, and feels a warm fuzziness seeping into her.

((Mechanically, each scene you keep one of Shashelme’s gifts counts as a scene of building a Principle of Slavish Adoration towards them, up to a limit of the Artifact rating of the gifts, as an Emotion effect. Resources 5 counts as A1 - Followers and Command are priced as A2. You can pay down the debt by providing goods or services back to them rated at the same cost - obviously as they give out artifacts, it can build up quite quickly. You can also spend (gift rating) wp to act for a scene as if you don’t have the Principle.

Keris has taken a large collection of rare and valuable maps, so together they’re worth A2 as a total.))   
((So, 2-dot. Oh, Keris.))

Keris is blushing as she leaves - blushing enough that she forgets to make sure she’s out of sight before stowing the maps away in her Domain, even - and resolves to do her very best to repay the Unquestionable for his kindness. And also to stay on his good side for as long as possible.

Keris spends a good two or three hours of the journey back in the initial rush of NEW PRETTY THINGS. She’s so absorbed that she barely notices not being able to run around, and is actually sort of surprised at how interesting comparing the shape of coastlines and the locations of cities is.

The novelty wears off sometime around finding the island she and Sasi had stayed on and so on in the Shogunate - having been going through them in order of age from the oldest onward - and she has a couple of mindless musician-serfs put them up on the walls of her library before heading off to play tag with Echo and swim up to cuddle the moon for a bit.

In deference to the fact that it is a library, they are playing string instruments. Very quietly.

((Roll me Cog + Occult, then))   
((2+3+2 stunt=7. 6 SUX? Oh, NOW you like me, dice fairies? NOW? After I’ve FINISHED talking to the Olympian god?))   
((Arrgh.))

Keris thinks - although she’s by no means an expert - that she recognises some of these things from the libraries of Orabilis. They’re manse-flow diagrams, some of them - showing the locations of dragon lines and confluences. There are a _lot_ of manses shown from the Shogunate-era map. Like, a lot. A lot a lot.

She wakes briefly - purely for business and not at all because Echo has tagged her sixteen times in a row without Keris catching her once, the irritatingly stealthy and quiet little sneak - long enough to get out her Cherub Shrine and send Sasi a message roughly describing where she went, what Shashelme wanted, and what she took from him.

In deference to the fact that she is still on Shashelme’s sky-barge, it is a _very carefully worded_ message that speaks of him in glowing tones.

((... sigh. Keris. You can just FLG the Principle whenever you feel like it.))

When Keris gets back to the Conventicle, Sasi rushes back to examine her with invisible telekinetic hands. “You’re not infected with anything,” she says, sounding relieved after poking and prodding Keris for a bit.

“Hello to you too,” says Keris automatically, before registering Sasi’s words. “... oh. Right. Uh, good. Thank you. That’s... good.”

She hadn’t even considered that, and shivers at the thought. “Um... no, it was... alright? Terrifying, but alright. She - she was a she at the start - wanted me to ‘aid her in her desires’, and apparently she desires An Teng? Like, all of it. _All_ of it.” She spreads her hair out in emphasis.

“And then he offered me anything I wanted - _anything_ I wanted - but I remembered how his gifts are like his fruit so I only took some maps of An Teng, which seem like they could come in useful and probably don’t put me too much in his debt.”

Sasi exhales slowly. “There are no good choices there,” she says, after some thought. “Insulting the Shashelme would have been very risky. Keep your distance from it. It’s very dangerous - as befits one of the Unquestionable.”

Keris opens her mouth to say that he seemed to like her and that she _was_ rather pretty and that she’s certainly at least going to pay him back, thinks better of it, and closes her mouth again. “I’m... not sure how much I’ll be able to do that,” she hazards instead. “There was a reason they asked me specifically.”

Sasi hisses in annoyance. “Well, take care,” she says. “It’ll no doubt try to get you to accept more of its gifts. Try to pay off whatever you can, and only take what you need.” She shakes her head. “Unquestionable Iasestus and Unquestionable Ululaya will not be happy if it has thrown its hat into the ring in An Teng. And I doubt Madelrada will be pleased - she’s already... ah, out of place with Ululaya’s interference.”

Keris considers that for a moment, and then leans into Sasi for a hug; seeking reassurance. “She... she said that her greater self thinks I have promise,” she mumbles. “That I’m a sapling that might one day be a tree. The All-Hunger Blossom _knows me_ , Sasi. It’s _paying attention_ to me.”

Sasi hugs her back, and leans in to kiss her on the lips. “You walk a painful path, so close to the All-Makers,” she says. “I myself am fortunate that the Desert, the Principle and the Dragon have paid no true attention to me. I can deal with the Unquestionable. The All-Makers, though...” she shrugs.

Keris gives her a wobbly smile. “If that was meant to be comforting, you’re really bad at it,” she criticises with a hint of wry humour. “At... least the Great Mother hasn’t really paid me much notice. I mean, besides answering a couple of prayers.” She takes a shaky breath, then another. “There’s still time before we leave, right? I need a run. I _really_ need a run. Clear my head a bit, maybe let Echo out to play.”

“A little later,” Sasi says. “Now that you’re here - and actually listening to me - I wanted to talk to you a little bit about An Teng. And answer some questions. Obviously we’ll talk more as we cross the Desert, but there are a few things I wanted to say.”

Keris nods, and gives Sasi her full attention, pulling out one of the more recent maps as an afterthought.

She gives Sasi a moment to examine the rich thread - this one is a weaving - and appreciate the worksmanship. Or worksdemonship, since she suspects the material is anhule silk.

Sasi clears her throat, and leans over the map. “An Teng,” she begins, “is... well, I suppose I should say that it’s a lot like a more unified Scavenger Lands. Although it’s all one satrapy, the local rulers are far more divided. There are three Princes, ruling each over a section of the land. There’s the Shore Lands, which are ruled by Prince Laxhander from the City of the Steel Lotus. This is the most Realm-influenced area of the land, and trades widely. The land is poor quality, though, and so it’s reliant on food from the Middle Lands, ruled by Prince Kiotaran from the city of Prosperous View. The Middle Lands are the breadbasket of An Teng. Finally, there’s the High Lands, to the east in the mountains, which are the most conservative and least-Realm influenced area. They export a lot of silver and gems. But they’re just the princes of the land - the local lords have lots of personal power.”

Keris nods, four hair tendrils tracing across the map with a delicate touch. “And I’m working against the Dynasts in the Shore Lands,” she says. “So cutting off their food supplies would be one way to hurt them; make them spend their trade money on getting fed instead of getting rich.” She taps the ocean segment with the fourth lock. “How much of their trade is over the sea?”

((o sasi. If Keris does wreck food shipments, you can be there with nice handy locusts for sale~))

“A lot. The rivers are how they move food and goods from the High and Middle Lands to the Shore Lands. An Teng is very naval from a trade perspective - it’s hard to cross land there. Even in the areas they’ve cleared, it’s all rice paddies. Where it hasn’t been cleared, there’s bamboo forests and mangroves closer to the shore.

She pauses. “Now, I may have given you the wrong impression when I talked about princes.” she says. “The Tengese are a peculiar sort. They’re matrilineal like sensible people, but they don’t believe women should rule. That means that while the land passes down the female line, the husband marries into the family and runs it for her. Women aren’t meant to fight - they’re too pure and spiritual for that - and they have a tie to the land in a way men don’t.” Her tone is mocking. “That means that while the Princes rule - they’re cousins, by the way, the Tengese royal families are one extended clan - they technically do so at the sufferance of their wives. If they ever went too far, the population would side with the wife over the Prince.

“And that’s another thing. The Tengese are... strange about family. It’s everything to them. It defines everything about you. If you do not marry, you are a failure to your family. If you bear the children of someone who is not your husband, the woman, the child and the man are all put to death in traditional areas. Being expelled from your family is a death sentence - they have a caste of... it translates as ‘Misbegotten’, people who don’t belong to a recognised family.”

Keris frowns. “Women don’t fight, have to marry... uh, what do they think of... I mean, what _would_ they think of...” she gestures between them. “You know. You and me.”

“We’re foreigners. They’ll rip us off, but we’re not expected to know any better. We’re barbarians who don’t come from reputable families and who don’t have clan members who can help us,” Sasi says, her face in a sardonic sneer. “But if we assume Tengese shapes with the aid of the Dragon’s gifts, these things will matter.”

Keris relaxes somewhat. “Okay,” she breathes. “So we’re fine in these shapes even though they’ll think I’m awful for about ten different reasons. Got it. Hmm. What if one ooooor two of the times we needed to both look Tengese, I disguised myself as a boy?” Sasi doesn’t look like she really buys the rapid mid-sentence change in direction, but Keris is inclined to play it “better safe than sorry” when it comes to possibly offending her lover.

“Male disguises are useful,” Sasi says, nodding. “Most Tengese women never leave the area where they’re born. They’re ‘tied to the land’ because they’re the ones who inherit it.”

“Right. So, what’s our cover this time? Am I your bodyguard again, or... oh, or maybe a musician or something? Wait, no, you were already down there before I met you, weren’t you? So you have a set-up there already?”

Sasi nods. “I have control of a network of families in the City of the Steel Lotus - that’s the capital of An Teng. Technically Salt-Founded Glory is the capital of the Shore Lands, but the Prince spends all his time in Lotus. He’s very pro-Realm - a born sycophant.” She looks Keris up and down, curling around her closer. “I was going to have you move around more,” she whispers into Keris’ ear. “You like that, don’t you? Seeing new places? Meeting new people. Killing many of them.”

Keris grins happily, her eyes glinting. “Do I get to play with ships as well?” she croons gleefully. “All the pretty ships full of pretty things that cost lots and lots of money, with pretty wooden hulls below the water?”

“Some of the time,” Sasi says. “Other times, you’ll need to go inland.” She strokes Keris’ hair. “An Teng’s gods are quite active. And of course, they have widespread ancestor worship, despite the Immaculates’ best efforts to wipe it out.”

Keris purrs at the touch. “That sounds fun,” she mumbles. “And I feel better now. Thank you.” She hugs Sasi and kisses her on the lips, before rising with a stretch. “Still sort of need that run, though. Was there anything else? I’ll be back in an hour or two, as soon as I burn off some energy and let Echo out. She’s been getting restless. And that makes her go poke at the moon, and that makes Rathan cry, and then he makes it rain everywhere, and then Dulmea complains.” She sighs mournfully. “Why couldn’t I have well-behaved souls? Who weren’t brats?”

Sasi shakes her head sadly. “I have no idea,” she says, with utmost sincerity clear and evident in her voice.

Keris heads out at an easy lope, heading for the shores of Kimbery. They’re wide and open, and not much lives there, and a lot of what does are dumb beasts. She can let Echo out to play freely.

And she does; the Scourge flying along the iridescent beach, her pale red shadow flitting along behind her. Her spear flickers out to strike at the sand, at gnarled trees clawing out a life from Kimbery’s waters, at brightly-coloured crawling things in the surf.

Behind her, Echo laughs her silent laugh and mimics her, slashing merrily at the waves and carefully splitting newts and fish in twain, kicking up billows of sand and clots of mud and swirling them around in Keris’s wake.

Ice is rolling in off the sea. A fleet of bergs is crashing in. They’ll soon dash themselves against the windowless buildings which function as a sea wall.

Keris giggles and changes course, sprinting across the water and cutting ribbons of glittering ice-water from the ocean surface as she careens over the bergs, splitting some asunder and leaving others entirely unmarred as the mood takes her.

Glancing back, Echo appears to be trying to practice writing by cutting shapes that could be letters into the ice. Given the speed at which the pair are moving, they have a tendency to be somewhat sloppy, and rather elongated.

((It is debateable whether she can actually read them, or whether she’s just copying pretty shapes.))   
((Echo got 3 successes on her ‘writain’ roll))   
((D’awww. She has left a pretty message saying “eko waz ‘ere”.))

It was quite demanding to break all these super-massive icebergs, and Keris soul burns bright around her.

Bored with the icebergs, she turns again and heads inland - or what she thinks was probably inland. Uh. Hmm. It appears that the ice floes went on for a bit further than she’d thought. Land is no longer in- oh wait, no, there it is. Keris changes course slightly and heads for the beaches of Cecelyne - it looks like the Endless Desert has engulfed part of this layer, for she can see brass and basalt buildings buried under the sands.

Keris must be on one of the smaller layers, for it to be so close to the edge of the city. She’s still not perfectly at ease with Malfean geography. And also Malfean geometry.

A hot dry wind is blowing in from the Desert. It smells of rock and... and nothing alive. It’s always quite distinctive compared to the City, which... well, smells a bit like a more metallic Nexus in a lot of the areas.

She turns to follow the wind, which is probably leading back into the city rather than further into the Desert - she said she’d be back in a few hours, not a few days. It’s trickier to keep Echo out and occupied out here where there’s nothing much to attack, and the little waif is having so much fun that Keris is loathe to bring it to an end just yet.

At the moment, Echo is enjoying a piggyback ride. Which basically means that Keris has a little wind-waif riding on her shoulders, waving her spear around like the tiniest and most-made-of-murder-wind horseman ever.

She indulgently lets her hair blow back and upward, and Echo scrambles up it to see the world from a rather higher perspective than she’s usually able to. She seems to find being taller than everyone else to be rather fun, even if “everyone else” currently only consists of Keris and, briefly, a few unfortunate sand-dwellers.

Keris looks up, and frowns slightly. Actually, now that she looks at her, she thinks... Echo is slightly taller. She’s grown slightly.

‘She’s getting bigger,’ she thinks to Dulmea. ‘Like she’s growing up, almost. Though... huh. It’s been what, two seasons since she was born? Or, uh. Grown. Budded.”

“I hope she grows up. Maybe she’ll learn to keep away from my teacups,” Dulmea says grouchily.

This earns her a giggle. ‘She’s just trying to impress you,’ Keris argues. ‘Having tea like a proper little angyalka. It’s not her fault she breaks them by touching them. Besides, can’t you just make more?’

“It’s not the same,” Dulmea insists. “I put a lot of effort into those teacups. And some of them are ones you give me!“

‘And I _know_ I can get more,’ Keris points out. ‘Same way I got those ones. At least as long as there are places selling teacups around. Ooo, do you think An Teng has special teas?’

Keris certainly thinks she remembers them having funny foreign drinks in that bit of Nexus with those people from the South West in it.

She glances up at Echo, who is now capering along her hair like it’s a tightrope, and rolls her eyes. “Alright little miss,” she calls. “You’ve had your fun, we’re heading back home now. Come on.” She vaguely recognises the area they’re in now - the Conventicle is about twenty minutes away at an easy pace, and that should be enough time for her flaring soul to have died down by the time she gets there. “Don’t sulk; you know we still have to finish packing before we leave!“

Echo pulls a face, and expressively shrugs. This time, the shrug may well mean ‘ _You_ need to pack’.

Keris snorts in amusement, and heads for home.


	2. Chapter 2

The sea wind blows through Keris’ hair. The sun is hot overhead, and it’s humid. It’s very much a change from Nexus and the cool and ice. An Teng rarely gets cooler in winter than a Nexan summer, and in the hottest time of the year it’s sweltering indeed. White seabirds flock overhead. The River of Queens borders the north side of the city proper.

The city on the horizon in front of her is the City of the Steel Lotus, the capital of An Teng. She can see fleets of shipping boats and merchant vessels ahead of her, sailing from the sprawling docks. Set back from the docks are great stepped stone structures, with towers built on the top of their mesas. In between the stepped stone pyramids are row after row of houses, built closely together and built high. Of course, dominating the centre of the city is a magnificent structure of gold, teak, lapis and pearl, which seems to combine the local style with the style of the Realm.  
  
“This is Lotus,” Sasi says, from under cover on the vessel. She’s fanning herself in the heat, and wearing a red sari. She’s also dyed her skin a pale yellow, and her hair is black. “I’ve got soft spending time away from here. It’s the humidity. I got too used to Nexus and the cold, I’m afraid. We’re coming in via Dragon Mouth Bay.”  
"  
Keris murmurs asset from where she’s wringing out her hair. Taking dips in the ocean, she has found, is a good way to avoid the heat. Unfortunately, it leaves her hair wet afterwards. And her assumption that she would dry off quickly has turned out to be wrong, because of the humidity in the air, so it quickly leads to her feeling stifled and clammy and hotter than ever. Which necessitates another dip in the sea.  
  
“Wasn’t this hot on the island,” she mutters. Her brain isn’t working right. She’s pretty sure it might be melting a little. “Why’s the wind not cooling us down as much here?”

“I don’t know,” Sasi says sadly. “I think the shape of Dragon’s Mouth traps the air. You should see what the climate is like during monsoon season. Some of the storms... well, they’re the largest I’ve ever seen.” She shakes her head. “Well, that’s something you’ll see for yourself. Anyway, this is the Shore Lands. You see the docks spread out all around the inside of the bay. This is the Dragon’s Jaw - it’s formally part of the metropolitan Realm, not An Teng. It’s a legal thing, but it does complicate matters. There’s around a thousand legionnaires here as part of the garrison.”

Keris dips a lock of hair in the water and lays it over her forehead - ahhh, nice and cool - then levers herself upright to look around. She breathes in, scenting the humid sea air and the myriad scents mingled into it from human habitation, picking out the strongest contaminants. Her ears twitch, picking up the sounds drifting across the wide-open harbour; the way the local geography shapes the echoes of the clamour, the distant hum of docks and settlements all up and down the coastline.  
  
((Reaction+Awareness=5+5+2 Coadj+2 stunt=14. 7 sux for sight, 9 for scent and 18 sux for hearing, lawl.))  
((Uh... I guess, what do you want to know? Because... well. Uh. That’s basically anything.))  
((Mostly an impression of the people there - the scents of what they’re carrying on the ships, and the gist of what most of them are saying to each other. Heh. Keris can basically poll most of the harbour to see how much of what’s on the water is trade ships, fishermen, patrol boats, etc.))  
((Sasi: “... she got all that from one inhalation and a few seconds of turning her head. That would _almost_ be worth the constant sensory bombardment.”))

Keris sniffs the breeze. There’s salt and rotten seaweed and the wetness of the swampy water. She makes a note of that, and fills her lungs. She can smell the scent of lotuses and metal and copper and iron and unwashed men on some of the heavier-loaded junks. The ships which smell of fish are smaller ones.  
  
The noises of the city are filled with noise. There’s the sound of bars and brothels and wailing children and... the near-side parts of the city sounds like the bars of Nexus. In fact, it sounds like the Harlotry in Firewander, combined with the docks of Nighthammer, and perhaps a wimpy non-Nexan version of the Little Market. The noise is only like that close to the shore, though.

“Lotuses,” she notes aloud, half to Sasi and half to herself. “I can smell them on some of the barges. Is that why it’s called that?” She takes another breath. “Metal, too, and men. Those legionnaires go out on the water?”

Sasi shakes her head. “The Navy also operates out of Dragon’s Jaw, but... ah! Yes, one of the exports from An Teng is from the mountains in the East. That might be what you’re smelling.” She narrows her eyes. “Or... well, the Lintha are known to operate, concealed, from An Teng.”

Keris cocks her head. “Isn’t that good? They’re our allies, aren’t they?”

“I don’t like them,” Sasi says simply. “I interact with them, but I don’t like them. They’re arrogant, unsophisticated despite their pretensions, and acted like I was a servant sent to aid _them_. I will let them keep their delusions, but they do not comprehend the situation they are in.”

Keris considers that for a while, before nodding. “Sounds like they need teaching who’s got more of the All-Maker’s favour, if you ask me.” She grins. “Maybe I could come along if you have to deal with them again?”

“I will consider if your particular talents might be needed,” Sasi says, patting Keris on the hand. She clears her throat. “Anyway, I control the Gentle Blossom noble family, along with multiple other clients and allies of theirs. They had fallen on hard times until I started providing my backing - as far as they’re concerned, they’re worshipping gods who dislike the intrusion of the Immaculate Faith onto their lands, and support the old ways. Things were especially helped since I had Geasa murder all their ancestor-ghosts, so they couldn’t be warned there. It’s all behind the natural layers of obfuscation. To them, I am a priestess bringing words from the gods, and I carry out divinations and prayer-ceremonies for them. They - like many noble families - dwell in Lotus proper, although their holdings are to the south of here.” She looks sternly at Keris. “We are not to get them involved in any... indiscreet affairs, do you understand? They are a safe place for us to operate from - they are not a pawn to be sacrificed. Unless it is truly necessary - and it is not right now.”

Keris nods. “No making them fall in love with me or hurting them by accident or getting them mixed up in shady stuff, got it,” she assures Sasi, and pauses. “... actually, maybe I should just try to stay away from them as much as possible.”  
  
She cocks an ear and winces. The sounds of the city are getting louder as their ship approaches the docking berth. She discreetly plugs her ears with hair, hiding the bunched-up plugs under the rest.

Sasi breezes through customs with Keris in her wake, some quiet words and a bribe easing her passage. “They’ll deliver the rest of our baggage later,” she says casually. Well, of course. She’s had Keris carry certain things from Malfeas - treasures, rare ingredients, gems, spices, drugs - within her soul. There’s no way they’ll have them discovered.  
  
She has apparently already arranged for palanquin transport, and the two of them get into it, heading to their destination of the family’s holdings in the city.  
  
“Lotus is not like most Tengese cities,” she says to Keris quietly, pulling the curtains most of the way closed. “There are hundreds of Dragonblooded here - it is a holiday destination for Dynasts. The city is built more in the style of the metropolitan Realm. Most other Tengese cities have more canals than roads, and,” she points out the curtain, at the stepped pyramids, “those structures on top are built in the Realm style. They wouldn’t look like that in other cities, especially outside of the Shore Lands.”  
  
She sits back in her seat. “Lotus is not like much of An Teng,” she says. “The Realm has much more influence here, and the bonds of family are weaker. You remember the slums in Dragon’s Jaw? This is where family-less outcasts move from all over An Teng. Many of them find jobs serving the trade, or try to work on trading ships - anything to get away from An Teng. They have no family, and so are nothing here. The Realm uses many of them - the misbegotten are often used as spies by anyone who can afford them.”

“That’s awful,” Keris says softly. “No family, no... huh. Do we offer them anything? I bet some of them would go for- oh, but the Realm’s really strong here.” She frowns. “Damn.”  
  
Shaking it off, she glances around again, peering up out of the palanquin at the Realm-style structures with interest. “Where are we headed, then? What’ll we be doing first?”

“Well, I shall be heading to a small residence I rent close to the Gentle Blossom family’s residence,” Sasi says. “Both of us need to clean up, we will need to conceal certain things in the underground areas I have constructed, and then I will need to get dressed and approach the family with some gifts and perform for them to demonstrate that the gods still smile upon them.” She taps her fingers on the wood panelling of the palanquin. “I do not mean to pry, but have the Unquestionable given you any direct orders or tasks? I do understand our missions are not in perfect compliance here.”

Holding a hand up, Keris wobbles it from side to side with a grimace. “The Shashalme said that they wanted me to make An Teng theirs. Spread their cults, get influence for them, that sort of thing. But they didn’t give me any direct goals... they didn’t even order me to do it, really, but they’re going try and make a move on the place either way, and I figure I’d offend them if I didn’t do something for them in return after they gave me the maps.”

“Hmm,” Sasi says, tapping her fingers against her front teeth. It’s strange to see her with more normal colouration - and it’s not just her skin and hair, Keris realises with a start. She’s subtly adjusted her eye shape and her lip shape, so which she clearly has Realm blood, she’s got something else in there too. “Well, I do have something which you might be able to do which might give you a chance to get used to An Teng. The Red Mountain family have over the past few years begun widespread cultivation of poppies rather than the traditional fruits, and are exporting them back to the Realm. They have made a contract with the Ragaras, and are using the income from that to act against their rivals at court. Several other families are emulating them. It’s not in my interests for the Ragara to get too much control over the Tengese noble families, because the Ragara satrap will use that to solidify his control. It would be useful if the Red Mountain family was discredited in some way.  
  
“However, we can’t just kill them all. There’s a magistrate operating here - Nellens Niramono. He’s stiff-backed and every centimetre an Earth Aspect. I’ve been distracting him with cases of corruption, but he’ll be on the murder of a prominent noble family like a bloodhound. And don’t kill him. The Realm will pay far more attention if a magistrate is killed.”

Keris wrinkles her nose. “So unfair when you can’t just kill people who are making themselves a problem,” she complains under her breath. “Okay, so, hmm. If I get them to worship the Shashalme and then they get caught and discredited, that helps out you. And then the Shashalme might get angry at the Realm for attacking their new cult and take some of the load off your back, yeah?”

Sasi clasps her hands together happily. “Oh, Keris,” she says, giving her a kiss, “that is an even better idea than what I was going to suggest. I only was going to ask you to look around within their holdings to see if there was anything I could use against them.”

Keris glows happily at the praise, even if she’s a bit dubious that Sasi hadn’t already thought up something like that on her own. After all, she’s really smart. But maybe she just hadn’t thought that hard about it, or something.

Sasi’s house is a three storey stone structure with a small garden surrounding it. It’s obviously fairly expensive, but it’s far from the most lavish Keris has seen. It’s on the edge of the merchant’s district, on a small rise of land which means it stands above much of the rest of the surrounding area.  
  
Keris is shown through to the living area, while Sasi talks with her housekeeper. She’s bought a selection of fruit in which sliced banana plays a prominent role, some kind of onion-tasting bread, a glutinous orange dip which tastes strongly of fish, and some ferociously hot spiced rice.

She savours them all - especially the rice, which somehow seems to make the rest of her cooler even as it makes her tongue seem to catch fire, and keeps an idle ear open for any mentions of her in Sasi’s conversation with the housekeeper as she takes in the other noises of the house and its inhabitants.  
  
((Just rolling to see how many people are in the house and what sort of servant staff Sasi keeps on hand - including immaterial ones. 14 dice; 8x2+4=20 sux.))

Sasi’s conversation with the housekeeper is fairly dull - she’s checking over the budget, doing Sasi-like things where she asks if the rules have been followed or if any spies have been caught, and then she asks the housekeeper to send a boy to politely request the attendance of Mitr Blue Sea some time this evening.  
  
Meanwhile, Keris can hear that there’s maybe five workers here, all women - from something Sasi said, it’s for the sake of her reputation that she lives only with women. No, wait, there are two men working in the gardens. Two of the women are gossiping about Keris in the kitchen and who Lady Sareh has back with her this time, while they work on - hmm, something involving fruit and sugar and breadcrumbs. Oh, and of course, Keris can hear... uh, dozens of demons coming from _under_ the building. They sound oddly muffled somehow, but... yes, there are quite a lot of demons down there, hidden out of sight.   
  
Keris is quite glad that Sasi’s house has a little gap around it, and is raised slightly above the rest of the city. It makes it slightly quieter, and makes up for the noise of the demons.

After brief consideration and a stern mental look from Dulmea, Keris decides against going and introducing herself to the maids - even if whatever they’re making smells tasty. She rocks back and forth on her heels a few times, hoping that Sasi will finish her boring conversation soon and come do something because she’s bored, bored, _bored_. Almost bored enough to go and explore the markets by herself, though the threat of Sasi getting angry at her is enough to keep Keris from going quite that far. At least for now.

Sasi comes in. “I have a life-saving room in here,” she says. “I have the maids filling up the water tanks, but as we wait - I think I shall show you the underlevels.”

“Where all the-” Keris bites herself off quickly before she finishes the sentence. “Ah, where all the _interesting_ sounds are coming from?” she says instead, with an impish grin. “Great, that sounds fun!”

“This way,” Sasi says, leading Keris down into the lower levels. Sasi seems to have had enough good taste to pick a house made of stone, which muffles the sound better - and also won’t burn down - and the basement is much cooler.  
  
Sasi shoots a glance at Keris and her relieved sigh. “Yes, I know,” she says. “It gets better. Is there anyone nearby?”  
  
Keris shakes her head.  
  
“Good.” She kneels. “Open up, I command you with the authority of Cecelyne,” she commands the floor. As Keris watches, what had looked like solid stone paving stones fold, revealing there’s something made of crystal living underneath the floor, which has barbed tendrils stuck in the paving stones. When it moves its limbs, it moves the slabs out of the way. This reveals a narrow stone passageway leading down to a hidden sub-level. The air which comes up out of the place is bone-dry, and smells vaguely sweet.

Grinning and bouncing along behind Sasi, Keris is all but giggling. A secret tunnel under the house! This is just the _coolest!_ Literally and metaphorically. She instantly decides that her townhouse needs secret passages - proper secret passages that need passwords and everything, not just the boring servant passages that her staff use so they’re not always cluttering up the halls and corridors when she goes on an indoor run.  
  
And from the smell of it, Sasi’s put another little desert down here. Keris nods in approval. Sasi’s deserts are quiet and cool and nice, albeit a bit dull. And from what Sasi said she’d learned from the Endless Desert recently, she might be able to get back to Malfeas from here instead of having to take a long boat ride from the island entrance, if she really needs to.

The stone down here is different. It’s older, and it’s stained and... it used to be buried, Keris realises. Well, it’s still buried, but it used to be buried-buried, as in this whole place was filled with earth.  She surreptitiously allows a hair-tendril to run along the wall for a moment and brings it up to her mouth to taste, rolling the flavour of the stone around her mouth assessingly.

Keris is fairly sure it’s the same kind of white stone which the Shogunate getaway holiday-place was made. No, not quite the same. It’s not as good quality. Even before it was damaged, it wasn’t built to the same standards. It... it looks sort of like... like some kind of...  
  
... it’s like Kasseni’s house. A worse one. But it feels... like a poor person’s house, built with expensive rocks and the like

“What was this place?” she asks, trailing her hair along both sides of the passage curiously. “It’s like the manse we stayed in - or like Kasseni’s place was - but not as... not as posh. Not as well made.”

Sasi nods. Keris can hear the demons around her; invisible. “I think it was housing built in the Shogunate, for the city which stood here before Steel Lotus. The tales say the Shogunate flooded the Shore Lands to close the shadowland the deaths in the Contagion caused.”

Keris shivers. “So what’s down here now? One of your deserts, like in Nexus?” She cocks her head. “What happened to that one, anyway? Did you leave it there?”

Sasi shakes her head. “I broke the sorcerous bindings,” she says. “This way, if someone finds it, it’s just sand - and I had it set up to look like a private meditation room anyway.” Sasi clears her throat. “There are three floors to this building which I’ve had the demons repair and clear up. There’s an extra one further down, but I can’t keep it dry. The water table is high - I think this rise in the land was basically caused by the debris getting trapped up against the building. The north side of the river is even more marshy than the south. But this way, we have three hidden storeys - and yes, I have an escape route down here.”  
  
She looks Keris up and down. “Although... ah, it does somewhat assume that you can take the form of a shadow and squeeze out,” she adds.

Keris doesn’t hear this last bit, because she’s too busy concentrating on the first one. “Go back to the part where you said ‘high water table’ and ‘can’t keep it dry’,” she says, biting her lip with glee. “Do you think you could get me a passage out to the ocean from down there? Because if you could, I could bring in stuff from shipwrecks in a way nobody could follow,” she adds tantalisingly.

“Uh,” says Sasi, thinking hard. “I... don’t think so,” she says. “The water table is... it...” she thinks again, obviously trying to put it in Keris terms. “It’s not that there’s literally the sea under the land, like the Ocean in the City is,” she says. “It’s just that the soil is wet.” She tilts her head. “Although,” she says thoughtfully, “maybe it might be possible to find the old sewers or basements in this muck. They’d be choked with silt, though. They’d have to be cleared out.”

“Stomach Bottle Bug?” Keris suggests. “Or... I think there are dog-things that eat rock. Well, something to think about. I’d love a little tunnel out to the sea.” She curls a second pair of hair-tendrils around Sasi from behind. “And I’d make it up to yoooouuuu...” she sing-songs; her voice dropping suggestively.

“The digging isn’t the problem, it’s the path-making,” Sasi says. “But if it could work - some smuggler’s tunnels might be useful.” She runs her hand down the wall. “... and you can’t be the first person to think of it, and the Lintha have been operating here for hundreds of years,” she says. “You might want to start by looking for any existing entrances they have, if any exist. Many of them can breathe water too.”

Keris looks like her birthday has come early, and all but starts vibrating on the spot with eagerness to get started.

“First things first,” Sasi says sternly, leading Keris into a storeroom positively packed with invisible demons. “You’re going to have to unload the things I had you carry, before...” she sighs, “before your po steals them.”  
  
Sasi sits down, and Keris can feel her invisible mind-hands at the ready, waiting to take things Keris passes her.

Keris pouts. “One time,” she complains, bringing out the first of the chests of gems. “One time, and I’m never allowed to forget it.”

((Oh, Sasi. “Totally undetectable hiding place for transport of large quantities of goods”, offset by “Primordial-fed po soul may steal everything and refuse to give it back”.))  
((Sasi: “Sigh. There’s always a catch.”))

It takes a while to get everything unloaded and stacked to Sasi’s satisfaction. There is some loss to the po, but fortunately it’s only of easily replaceable things, like currency.  
  
“This will be very useful,” Sasi says, running her hands over it. “An Teng uses the jade standard, so it’s harder to forge currency here. This will be invested as favours and income and capital.”

Keris nods. “Right. I’ll, uh, let you deal with that, then.” She glances vaguely downward, shifting from foot to foot impatiently. “So... can I go look for secret underwater Lintha tunnels now? Ooo! Want me to check out what they’re smuggling in, if I find any?”

“If you wish,” Sasi says. “I’ll be occupied for the next few days at least - I’ll need to hear from my local agents and do things with my assets. If you feel like going after the Red Mountain family,” she shows Keris through to another room, where a single cannibal bureaucrat sits. “This is Boronomo,” she says. “Send cherub-messages to him, rather than me, and he’ll weave them into things I can read later.”

“Boronomo,” Keris repeats, committing the name to memory. “Got it. Okay, I’ll let you know if I find anything.” She draws Sasi into a quick hug and a kiss goodbye. “Mmm. See you later!”  
  
She takes off at a jog, negotiates the crystal-tentacle-floor demon by repeating the password Sasi used and prodding it until it opens up, and heads out towards the markets. She wants to get a feel for the city before hitting the water, and the best way to do that is to look at the beating pulse that is its street life.

Keris stands out here. Not only because her Firetongue is poor, but also because she simply doesn’t look much like the locals. Her skin tone is different, and there’s almost no redheads here - the hair colours here are black, brown, and deep blues. The only people with hair anything like hers are the Realm sailors and merchants she sees.

Wrinkling her nose at some of the dismissive or outright hostile looks she gets from the locals, she mutters a few choice suggestions drawn straight from Nexus’s gutters concerning what they should do with noses so long that they can’t help but poke into other people’s business, and heads for the docks.  
  
After the heat and mugginess of the city air, the water is a balm. Keris sighs in bliss as she slips into the harbour and a few kicks take her down out of sight. The water isn’t as bitingly cold as Nexus or Matasque’s winters, but its warmth is still pleasantly cool compared to the air above it. She allows herself a few happy minutes of drifting around investigating the foundations of the docks and poking at interesting bits of seaweed before getting down to business.  
  
The clamour of the city is muted down here, but the clamour of the boats is, if anything, amplified. With so much noise in the water, the echoes are everywhere, and all Keris has to do is listen for the odd reverberations that speak of sound coming back out of long, thin waterways into the wide open bay. She can taste the water too, and the warped and diminished tang of the Demon Sea is an ever-so-faint presence here and there around the harbour.  
  
There. Keris hears the odd acoustics echoing up from the water. There are... quite a few hidden places down here, where the water moves under the land.  
  
Oh yes. And the faint songs of the demons. She can hear them too.  
  
((Physique + Subterfuge for SNEAKY SWIMMING))

She grins happily. Oh, it is _so_ much fun cutting egos down a peg or three. Especially egos that have been treated Sasi like dirt, and think they’re all clever and secretive when there are other people who are better at it around.  
  
Her Amulet expands outward to cover her completely in rippling veils of opaque water; fading and dulling until their colour is a fair facsimile of what’s around her. She drifts gently downwards with deliberate lack of purpose, thinking calm, oceany thoughts and letting herself drift on carefully chosen currents so as not to disturb the water.  
  
This, she thinks, is going to be fun.  
  
((5+5+2 Amulet+3 Silver Willow Style+3 MSM autosux+2 Adorjan ExSux {exposing the flaws in systems, purposeful chaos, surprise, laying low the proud}=15. 8+5=13 sux.))

Keris is akin to a fish, moving silently through the water. There’s a hidden space she finds where there’s been a passage through old brickwork and what looks like the hull of a ruined metal vessel cleared out. There’s a creature the size of a child made of coral squatting above the water, two long tongues curling down into the water, sifting out prey, but Keris simply... slips by its tongues and curls up and around a slime covered rock formation using her hair to climb it.  
  
This may have started off as a hidden place under the city, but it’s clearly been used like this for a long time. The walls have been redecorated with black lead and the floor have been worn away by countless footprints. It’s lit by bioluminescent pools, and... it feels like the Great Mother.

Humming along in her head to Dulmea’s quiet, amused harp-song, Keris ghosts along silently, tasting the walls and floor here and there to make sure she’s going in the right direction. Lintha have been here; she’s sure of that much. Their particular scent is almost baked into the walls. It makes it easy to track where they’ve been going - like an ant trail, following the scent of footsteps.

There’s a rope here, leading up through a crude, rough tunnel cut through muck and old stone. It’s dark up there, and Keris can’t see any light at the top.  Keris rolls her eyes at it, assesses the geometry of the shaft for a moment, takes a few steps back to get a run-up, and shoots straight up the wall.

((Reaction + Awareness))

Her silence is a boon - it means she can keep her ears open for what’s waiting for her at the top. As the distant twinkle of light begins to grow into an opening, Keris’s hair shoots out to anchor her; bracing against holes in the brickwork and giving her a moment’s pause to listen hard before coming out through the top.  
  
((5+5+2 Coadj+2 stunt=14. Lol 10x2+4=24 sux.))

Keris nimbly avoids the tongues hanging down in the darkness, waiting to snare someone crawling up, and creeps around the child-sized demon made of coral sitting on a niche. At the top, she puts her head to the wooden trapdoor. It sounds like she’s in the basement of... hmm, probably some kind of warehouse. Ah, no, it’s not a trapdoor there, it’s a cargo lift which fills the space above her. She can fit around it because the shaft widens up here, and above the cargo lift is the trapdoor.  She presses an ear to the wood, listening for any sounds of activity or life in the warehouse above.

It sounds like a normal warehouse. There’s men working up there, moving cargo around. From the sound of the waves, it’s perhaps a hundred metres back from the seafront - enough that they can just move the cargo up slowly and if more things leave the warehouse than enter it... you’d need an expert bureaucrat to notice.

She huffs softly in laughter and creeps up around the side of the cargo lift, easing the trapdoor open just enough to slip through without being seen. A quick look around is enough to get her bearings, and she slips out without any of the workers so much as noticing her.  
  
Outside, up on the roof of the building, she glances around to check the location of the warehouse - something to remember and tell Sasi later - and turns back to the docks. Hmm. Now then. She’d entered about _there_ , and Sasi’s house was somewhere over... she swivels... _there_ , so the tunnel had been going _this_ way...

((Does it pass anywhere near Sasi’s home? Or even roughly in the right direction?))  
((No. This seems to be very much a cargo tunnel - it’s here so someone can drop things off from a boat and bypass customs and move them straight to a warehouse, Keris thinks. Or possibly the other way around, smuggle stolen goods out. Either works.))

... no, she decides. This one is useless to her. Urgh. Well, at least she’s found something for Sasi, which might help her squeeze the Lintha a bit next time she has to deal with them. Though... she’d said something about old sewers too, hadn’t she? Maybe some of them opened into the harbour?  
  
At the very least, she decides, she can probably cut her way through a few abandoned cellars and start exploring the underside of the city for any possibilities... or maybe look for underground rivers or streams running under the city and into the harbour? They would taste like... freshwater in the brine, yes.  
  
Shrugging to herself, Keris heads back into the harbour to continue exploring her new home.

The thought about freshwater serves her well. Keris finds what seems to be an underground river of sorts, emerging from an ancient white stone pipe. It’s pushed away the silt of the harbour bed, but it’s littered in muck and filth and the entrance to the pipe is half-choked. It’ll be a squeeze.

A few prods and a wallop with her Lance sorts out the blockage - albeit with a flare of green-tinted steam that sends Keris spinning backwards head over heels in a cloud of bubbles - and she slips up the pipe with her eyes closed and Ascending Air in hand, sounding and feeling out the pipe ahead with questing hair-tendrils and light taps on the inside of the stone.

It’s cramped in here. Cramped and pitch black and claustrophobic and there’s debris littering it. The ceiling has fallen in in bits, and feels unstable. Keris follows the old pipes up until she finds what seem to be sharp metal teeth, now smashed and broken. It’s pitch black, but it sounds like water flowing through metal and stone up ahead, and there’s just a slight taste of... hmm, water passing over black jade.

Her eyebrows quirk up with interest - now this is new - and she flows forward cautiously, up to the obstruction. She considers it for a few moments, tastes it cautiously and rests Ascending Air against the base of the teeth.  
  
Then she cuts. The four-century old bone-porcelain blades are sharp in a way that no mundane metal can hope to equal, and while Keris can’t build up momentum with them the way she usually can, she’s strong for her size and has plenty of time. She can just saw herself a hole big enough to fit through and then swim on through to find out what they’re hiding.

Her blow ricochets, and there’s a deep blue flash which seems to come from right in front of her when she strikes, the only light her useless eyes are getting. The taste of water flowing over black jade gets stronger.

Keris is so surprised she almost drops the kris, and only the flicker of bloody lightning that takes it back to her soul-armoury stops her from doing just that. What... what had that been? How had she... wait. She licks at the metal again, ignoring the river water and the silt and sludge built up on the surface to get a taste of the metal itself.

The metal is an alloy of black jade and... hmm, silver, from the tang. Black jade makes water pure, she remembers old Calley saying, and silver kills diseases - that’s why she had that silver needle she used for when things had to be lanced. Keris reaches forwards, and turns the toothed thing. The glow lights up whenever it moves. It’s... it’s like some kind of waterwheel made out of teeth which glows with a blue light whenever it moves and makes the water taste funny. Fresh.

She frowns. Why isn’t it turning all the time then, she wonders? And how can she get past it? She scowls in annoyance, but yields to the inevitable and focuses. Red light blooms in this place; far, far under ground and water alike, and she stares slightly cross-eyed at the obstacle in front of her, lit by the scarlet circle on her forehead.

The toothed wheel covers the exit to the pipe - or maybe it’s the entrance. There’s a silt-choked hollow space in front of her, and... ah, yes, the blades are caught in the silt. When Keris hit it, she pushed it the other way, but the way the blades are shaped, the water drives them in a certain way. Still, they have taken damage over the years, and now she looks with her eyes she finds a bit where two teeth have broken off and she can probably squeeze through. If she was human she’d get cut up, but... well, she’s not.

She wriggles in, noting with vague amusement that her passage is disturbing the built-up silt and sending cloudy plumes of it up to be carried downstream by the current, and slowly inches her way forward, feeling the blades press against her back uncomfortably as she drags herself through. If this passage proves useful, she decides, she’s going to have to find a better way to get past this thing. Maybe even remove or replace it altogether.

Keris flows through like a liquid. The room behind feels like... a place for keeping water. Something which takes water from several pipes, and then forces it through that toothed grill.  
  
Well, she’s found the sewers, she thinks. And the water on the other side is already quite fresh, so either they already have more of these grills, or perhaps the underground rivers are now flowing through the old sewer networks. Or something.   
  
She still doesn’t really know where she is, though. Looking around with the red light torch burning from her brow, she can see what were probably once platforms overlooking this... this giant well, and what look like doors which would lead to somewhere else in this pillared space, but when she swims up she sees that they’re choked with debris and muck. This place is probably only kept clean with the water flow, which means the muck gets forced up to wherever it can settle.

Floating in the dark chamber, Keris thinks for a while. Eventually, finding out where she is wins out over exploring the tunnels further, and she forces the highest door open with a slash of her Lance and a kick.  Sediment comes pouring out, and she hears roofs creek alarmingly. She kicks back in alarm and the visibility drops in the water to almost nothing, but after a few minutes of alarming noise it settles down.  Wafting the cloudy water aside irritably, she drifts forward to see what she’s opened up.

The area beyond is choked with even more sediment. Maybe if she can get some demons who’ll eat it out the way it might work, but it’s not a one woman job. She’s fairly deep down, and the old city - well, Sasi said it might have been flooded. So if that’s a way of closing a shadowland, that might be using salt water. Lots of salt water.

She sighs, causing a tide of little bubbles, and flits back down again to leave the way she came. This place definitely has potential as a way in, especially if she can get Sasi to put a fake-wall demon in to hide it. But she’ll have to handle it later, after talking to Sasi and getting some demonic help.

For now, she thinks she’ll go and see if the maids at Sasi’s house have finished that fruit dish yet.


	3. Chapter 3

The dawn, when it comes, is hot and sticky. Heavy clouds lie low over the city, broken by patches revealing a pink dawn. Keris can hear the buzzing of mosquitoes outside the veiled windows as a thin whine which underlies the rest of the city waking up. Beside her, Sasi is asleep face-down in the pillow - presumably to stop the light waking her.

Keris begins the by-now-familiar routine of wiggling her hair free from where Sasi has rolled on top of it, mutters several dark curses directed at the atmosphere in general and the moisture and humidity gods in particular, shifts her Amulet into something approximating a decent nightgown and goes in search of food.  
  
The kitchens yield fruit - both literally and metaphorically - and she savours spoonfuls of some sort of mango dish as she moves onto the first order of the day. She’ll need to consult with Sasi before she makes a proper move, but since that won’t be possible until noon or so, Keris fills the time until then by looking for what information she can find about the Red Mountain in Sasi’s library.

Keris strikes luck and finds that Sasi in fact has some heavily bookmarked and annotated books which detail several families left out on the table. Well, that makes sense, she considers. Sasi is no doubt working on this kind of thing.  
  
The Red Mountain family is spread around the Blue Snake river to the north, with members with holdings in both the Shore Lands and the Middle Lands. It is invested in trade with the Realm, and exports both fruits and - increasingly - opiates.  
  
There are three major landholdings in the Red Mountain family.   
  
Count Metanee holds the most easterly lands on his wife’s behalf. Large amounts of his domain are mangrove swamps which contribute little, but there are also intensely profitable peach orchards which are used for a fine wine sold to the Realm, and salt pans. He is an urbane and sophisticated man, who juggles the Immaculate Faith and the Gold Lord with consummate skill.  
  
Marquis Jaa is the senior holding, with the largest opiate plantations and extensive mass-cultivated fruit farms. The Immaculate Faith is gaining strength in those lands. Sasi’s added annotations to the entry - she says she thinks the Marquis is a weak-willed man and his wife, Gentle Harmony, controls her own lands using him mostly as a public face for unpopular decisions like land-evictions for the opiates.  
  
Count Danuwong is the cousin of Jaa, also having married into the family, and has the family’s most powerful holding in the Middle Lands. He is fiscally troubled, as the lands are good for rice but poor for the most profitable fruits and poppies. He is known to have publically rowed with Jaa - a matter of some embarrassment to the family.

There are several lesser Viscounts and many lower titles, but the holdings are often tenured on one of the senior holdings.

Keris runs a finger along the entries, considering. Count Metanee... sounds dangerously competent, though those mangrove swamps sound nice. Still, he doesn’t seem to have any obvious problems she can offer solutions to. And Marquis Jaa already has someone manipulating him. She’s not sure she wants to get into a manipulating-people competition.  
  
Count Danuwong, through... he’s in the Middle Lands, but he’s got money problems and he’s fallen out with Jaa. Money is something she knows Shashalme has in almost unlimited supply, and if he’s desperate and disgraced he might be open to a miracle occurring. Oh oh oh! And if she plants some stuff from Shashalme’s cults in Jaa’s holdings in a cellar somewhere, it’ll look like he’s in on it too!  
  
Closing the books - and passing them in to Dulmea as a reflexive afterthought - Keris asks the kitchen maids to prepare something for... Lady Sareh, they’d been calling her last night, yes, and trots upstairs to tell Sasi what she’s planning and where she’ll be.

By the time Keris has finished her reading, Sasi is stirring and has just about managed to get out of bed. She’s washing her face in ice-cold water she got from... somewhere. Keris isn’t sure where. Oh, wait, apparently she’s freezing it with her powers from the Principle.  
  
“Good morning,” Sasi manages, scrubbing her face and arms as she leans over the bowl of water. “Now you see why a lot of Tengese rise before dawn.”

“... would it help if I killed the water gods?” Keris asks, giving the question serious consideration and cocking an ear for any in the vicinity. “Or the really-hot-in-the-mornings ones?”

“No,” Sasi says wearily. “I normally get my affairs done out of daylight hours, but I will be attending some dinners tonight in disguise so I have to get things done in this too hot, too humid, too bright time of day.” She makes a disgusted noise.

Keris cuddles her and puts the fruit dish on a bedside table. “So, I was reading about the Red Mountain family,” she starts. “In your books.” She produces one with the relevant passage, tracing down it with a hair-tendril. “And I was thinking maybe I could go see this Count Danuwong guy now? He’s short on money and it says he’s not in Jaa’s good books, so he should be the easiest to get to worship the Shashalme.”  
  
She pauses. “Actually, I meant to ask. I can’t exactly say ‘you should worship Shashalme!’, since they’re not going to want to worship a demon right off. Would they recognise their name, or should I call them... uh... something else? Would that even work?”

Sasi splashes cold water on her face again and squints at Keris as her mind seems to kick into gear. “There are ways of engineering rituals and faiths to channel the worship to the right being even without invoking its name,” she says. “It takes some work, but it can be done. It’s an art.”  
  
((Mechanically, designing such a catechism is a Cog + (lower of Occult, Expression and Subterfuge) extended roll - more successes means it’s harder for someone investigating it to work out who the prayers are really going to))

Keris wrinkles her nose. “Dang. Hmm. Would they recognise its name, do you think? Or would I have to learn how to do that first?” She chews her lip thoughtfully. “Might be a good thing to learn anyway, actually. Could be useful. Oh, hang on. Was that what you were doing on holiday on the island, when you got them worshipping you as the Lady of White Shores?”

Sasi nods. “Indeed. And it’s always best to avoid using the names of the Unquestionable if you care about discovery. Peasants might not know of them, but the Immaculates will.”

Keris groans, long and low, letting herself flop back onto the bed. “And you’re gonna say I gotta do the work myself, because you’re busy and I need to practice, aren’t you?”

“I can make sure you don’t make any too-grievous errors, but I have too many other things to do to be able to give it my full attention.” Sasi kisses her. “Anyway, you might not be the most educated around, but Keris, dear, you can be very persuasive and charming. You might be better at it than you think.”

Keris blushes a little, and hops back up. “Well... okay. Oh, I don’t think I told you; I found a maybe-way-in from the ocean. It’s a little pipe that goes into the old sewers - they’re full of silt and there’s a few water-wheel-things in the way, but they could work really well. I’ll keep you posted on it.”

She heads down to the library again, resigning herself to a few days of hard work and book stuff, and starts piecing together what she knows about Shashalme and designing rituals.

((What interval are the extended rolls made at?))  
((One a day, ten successes per increased difficulty of ID required))  
((Okay then, so do I just roll until I feel satisfied? Hmm. I’m not _too_ broken up if this gets caught by someone looking hard, since getting them disgraced is half the point, so I’ll aim for Diff 2-3.))  
((Ha ha ha yes, you managed to catch my trap. : p ))

Keris starts work that very afternoon by taking a nap. Sequestered safe from prying eyes in her Domain, she clears a wall of her library and covers half of it with everything she knows about Shashalme, drawing up paintings from memory and flipping through her books to confirm what she knows about the Unquestionable.  
  
On the other half, she begins sketching the basics of the cult she’ll be trying to start. The name is the first one - and Shashalme is the Scatterer of Seeds, so Keris decides - after several attempts and a few quick references to a scroll on occult prayer theory from Orabilis’s libraries - on the Sower of Wealth. She plays it safe with gender; making it indeterminate and almost neutral to avoid any risk of offense from a prayer reaching the wrong body.  
  
The rest starts to come faster after that. She jots down iconographies and symbols, starting with Shashalme’s marks and then carefully adding lines and flourishes to disguise them as different shapes while retaining the Hellish glyphs as part of the pattern. Prayers are almost easy - after meeting the Unquestionable, it’s not hard to guess that lavish praise of their generosity will be well-received, and affirmations of heartfelt gratitude for their favour will only nourish the seeds of obligation that those favours contain.  
  
Four days of book work later, after hours of ritual and hymn design, several carefully done paintings and statuettes and more than a few bouts of composing music with Dulmea critiquing her chords as unfit for a citizen’s repast, let alone an Unquestionable’s ceremony, she calls it finished and tests it with a sacrifice in the name of the Sower of Wealth, relinquishing a full set of burnished copper jewellery in a flare of green fire after drawing a circle of poppy seeds and pledging her gift to the cupped hands of the figurine at its centre.  
  
((Oh Keris. You’re Expression 5; your paintings and other works of craft are _actually rather good_.))

One of the poppy seeds blossoms briefly into a bright red flower, the colour of the female-form’s skin, releasing a familiar, sickly-sweet odour.

Keris bounces up happily and cheers. It works! Excellent! She stretches, works the kinks out of her back and heads up from the basement to find Sasi and show her what she’s compiled.  She realises, to her surprise, that it’s almost sunset and Sasi isn’t present. It’s past midnight when she does arrive, and Keris’ keen senses can tell that Sasi smells of... hmm, smoke. Incense, or something like it. Incense and blood and the hot sweetness of the Desert.

She cocks her head curiously, putting aside her success for a moment in favour of the odd smells.  
  
“Been busy?” she asks with a quirked eyebrow, hugging Sasi to kiss both her cheeks and get another good mouthful of the scent clinging to her.

“Oh, you know,” Sasi says self-effacingly. “I’ve been busy corrupting a noble family of An Teng into the worship of the foul and blasphemous Yozis.” She smiles. “Or at least that would be what they’d say if they knew what they were worshipping. But they don’t, and so they’ve been drinking locust-wine and sacrificing fine cattle to the ‘gods’ who brought them such favour. It’s very flattering, all the nice things they say about the One Without Colour,” she adds, mischievously.

Keris giggles. “Well, my stuff in that direction is done. I tried a sacrifice to the ‘Sower of Wealth’, and the Shashalme replied, so it works to funnel prayer to her. Hang on...” She extracts the arm-length scroll she’s noted everything down on in messy Old Realm and unfurls it across the table. “All I need is your check that it’s not too obvious who it’s funnelling it to. I think it could be better, but... well, I kind of want them to get caught once they’re neck-deep in it, so I stopped there.” She pauses. “... also, it was _four days of work_ , and I got bored,” she adds sheepishly.

Sasi takes it from her with invisible hands, and unfolds it to its fullest. Voices and music comes from skittering things in the shadow, scatterings from the prayers and hymns noted down. There’s the sound of a few calligraphic corrections and spelling edits, and when Sasi hands it back there’s a section crossed out in red and replaced with a section added in Sasi’s neat, precise hand. “Very well done,” Sasi says, with a nod. “Keris, you have some real raw talents there. I suppose you used to live by your talent for fooling people. It’s not a very... ah, formal style of prayer, but that would probably satisfy the Shashalme more.” She hums to herself. “It’ll depend a lot on how well you sell it to them,” she warns.

Keris nods. “I can use the Great Mother’s innocence to cover any slips,” she assures. “And he’s hurting on cash... hmm.” She bites her lip. “Can I ask you to transmute some gold for me? I could steal some, but he might hear about it - it’ll be better if it comes ‘from the goddess’, and I can think of some way for a sign to lead him to it.”

She sighs, half-wistful. “You really think I have talent at this stuff? It always used to be Rat doing the talking and charming people... I guess I picked up more than I knew.”

Sasi frowns, and stretches. “Let’s go down to the underlayers,” she says, after some thought. “I’m considering what the better bribe would be - that is, where the bribe should come from, to lead any investigators into a false trail.”

Keris follows obediently, rolling up the scroll and passing it back in to Dulmea as she goes.

In the dark places below her townhouse, Sasi begins poking through her treasure house, the objects floating around her telekinetically. “Realm?” she asks Keris. “Fire Syndicate? Pre-Realm treasures?”

Keris purses her lips. “We don’t want to make it too obvious to _them_ where it came from... but something that’ll get them in trouble if Nellens finds it. Any obscure Realm stuff that they shouldn’t have but won’t recognise?”

Sasi frowns. “Not really,” she says. “And I’d prefer not to deplete my stocks of jade too fast - I need them to bribe Dynasts. Hmm. Maybe some jade, and then some drugs? I can make them easily, and they tend to have fairly good resale prices. Well, that depends on the persona you’ll be using. What self were you going to wear.”

Keris hums to herself, chewing on a hair-tendril. “Well, Tengese, obviously,” she says. “Probably not female, since they have views about that sort of thing. Monk from the High Lands, maybe? Hmm. I could just take gold. Plant it somewhere old and out-of-the-way, then do a few rituals and show them a ‘divine sign of favour’ that leads them to it.”

“Hmm. Yes. That could work,” Sasi says. She sweeps through into another chamber, and starts sorting through piles of gold. There’s a little bit of Keris which is still awe-struck by how little regard Sasi gives this gold, but then again, it literally cost her the same as the cheap brass jewelry she made it from. Floating around her, she starts dropping a few measured items into a small iron box she pulls out of a stack. “By my estimates, you’ll want to give him enough to pay off... oh, say, a fifth of his current debts,” she says clinically. “Keep him coming back for more. Each extra payment should be used to draw him deeper and deeper into the cult.”

Keris nods. “I know that Shashalme’s gifts carry seeds of obligation in them,” she says. “If I headed back to Malfeas for a couple of weeks and ferried their gold back to give to him, would that still hold? Or would it be like them giving it to me to give to him, instead?”

Sasi sucks in a breath. “I would advise against that,” she says. “You do not want it thinking that you are too much at its beck and call. It will give you more gifts to try to make you ‘better’. And it may well not count a cult made with its assistance as payment of its debt.” She locks eyes with Keris.

Gulping, Keris nods, her face paling a few shades. “R-right. Yeah. Good point. More gifts would be...” She hesitates. The spear that the Shashalme had offered her had been _very_ pretty, and there had been _so much gold_ , and so many-  
  
She catches sight of Sasi’s expression.  
  
“Bad! Very bad, yup, not doing it, definitely not, you’re right, good point, well made. Hmm. Okay, I guess I’ll just sucker him into doing anti-Realm stuff with the offer of more money. Maybe make him love me a little, though I’d rather avoid that if I can.”

“Oh, there’s no need to push him against the Realm this early,” Sasi says mildly. “Just lure him, his wife, and her children into your new cult, and let them stew. No doubt their new master will send dreams to them in time. And if it doesn’t... well. We will happen to know what they really worship. And you can always introduce them to human sacrifice if you need that. After all,” she spreads her hands, “you can take away that wealth and ruin their crops just as you give. If the harvest fails, you can ask all things of them for enough money to tide them through.”

Keris grins happily. “Heheh. And move on Metanee and Jaa in the meantime. They don’t have many problems at the moment, but they could always gain some.”

“There are rumours that I have not been able to credit properly that Metanee is highly dependent on various drugs,” Sasi observes. “However, I haven’t been able to confirm it and so at the moment I am treating it as if his rivals are spreading such stories - which they certainly are.”

“I’ll see if I can get close enough to taste him - kissing his hand would be enough. If nothing else, I can get his scent,” Keris promises. “That should let us know for sure. I can try and find his supply, too. Maybe even track where he gets them from, if I arrange for him to run out.”

“That would be a great help,” Sasi agrees, as she finishes sorting through things for Keris. She passes a pair of earrings to Keris. Inset in each of them is an excellent quality ruby, catching what little light is in here. “If you could persuade his wife to wear these, it might be helpful,” she says.

Keris dangles them in the light and licks one curiously. “What’s up with them?” she asks, smacking her lips a few times and rolling the taste around.  
  
((5+5+2 Coadj+2 stunt=14. 9x2+4=22 sux. Oh Keris. You are like a toddler whose first reaction to something new is to put it in your mouth. Only your mouth is a more sensitive analysis device than a high-end mass spectrometer.))

There’s a tingle of sorcery about them, the hot-dryness of Sasi’s magic leaving her mouth feeling dry.   
  
“They’ll allow me to see them from a distance,” Sasi says calmly. “And I’ll also be able to keep track of you until you hand them over.”

“Oh really?” says Keris playfully. “Even if I do _this?_ ” She flicks them through a loop of hair, giggling as they fail to come out the other side, and receives a stern mental prod from Dulmea, whose ears they now adorn.

Keris isn’t sure if Sasi’s lips curled up slightly at the corners, but she certainly looks serious and very pouty after that moment passes. “I can’t do that if you don’t keep them in the same plane of existence,” she complains.

“Aww,” Keris complains - entirely genuinely - as she clutches at her golden kris-earrings. “But I can’t take these off to wear them instead! These ones are perfect!”  
  
((... Sasi knew damn well she was going to do that, didn’t she? Well played, madame Nemone. Well played.))

Sasi flicks her on the nose. “You can use pockets,” she teases.

“But that’s _boring_ ,” Keris pouts. “Besides!” She affects a look of mock distress. “What if some awful thief _pickpocketed_ them from me? Can you imagine?”

Sasi’s hand goes to her mouth. “What kind of dreadful thief would be able to sneak their hand into your pocket without being caught by your hearing?” she asks quizzically.

The grin that Keris has been fighting fades away, and she gives Sasi a vaguely peeved one. “I dunno, maybe an annoyingly _unhearable tasteless scentless shadow_ one,” she grumbles. “Who likes sneaking up on poor innocent princesses and scaring the life out of them by talking out of nowhere just behind their ear.” The irritated pout is genuine, but slips back into a smirk after a few seconds. “But yeah, apart from people like _that_ , probably no one. Alright, I’ll keep them in a pocket.”  
  
Suiting word to deed, she slips it into an inside pocket and kisses Sasi on the lips. “Danuwong is in the Middle Lands, isn’t he? I should probably start heading up the Blue Snake tonight, then. I’ll be back in... hmm. Actually, I’ll just send Boronomo a cherub when I get there.”

“It’s around a hundred kilometres,” Sasi advises archly, “so, no, _poor innocent princess_ , you are not leaving until the morning because I have just got back from a hard day, it is past midnight, and I require your attention to help me relax after dealing with aggravatingly snobbish An Tengese so-called nobles who pride their pathetic lineages.” She pauses. “And neither of us have seen much of the other over the past few days,” she adds.

Keris cocks her head, doing some mental maths. “Two, maybe three hours of swimming. Yeah, I can leave tomorrow morning, then.” She smiles lazily, her hair rustling forward to curl around Sasi’s shoulders and down to massage her thighs. “And that means I can spend the night helping you remember why all those little nobles would be grey with envy if they knew a fraction of what you had that they didn’t.”

In the end, Keris ends up leaving before dawn. Sasi is still asleep, and it’ll be too hot and sticky to run comfortably if the sun is up - not to mention she’ll be able to go faster if people don’t see her. She does leave a note, though.  
  
As she jogs at a human pace through the streets, the thought strikes her - is it this hot where her mother came from?  She didn’t look Tengese; Keris remembers that much - she was further East than that; possibly somewhere in the Deep South. She’s got even less to go on there than her father, though. At least there she has a town. Though she hasn’t made any progress finding it.  
  
Maybe, she thinks, she’s going about finding it the wrong way. There are probably... people, somewhere, she can hire to find it. Or... maybe a demon? She could get Sasi to teach her to summon... but then again, what demon would be smart enough, fast enough and stealthy enough for what she wants them to do?  
  
She could deal with the silt in the sewers with a demon too, but the only one she can think of that might be able to eat all that silt is a Stomach Bottle Bug, and they don’t do so well underwater. Nor, she vaguely recalls, do they like salt or seawater much, and there were tonnes of both in the sewers. Literally, tonnes.  
  
Really, she thinks as she dives into the harbour and begins heading north up the coast towards the Blue Snake River, what she needs is some way of _making_ a demon for exactly the job she wants it to do. Like the peers and citizens do, when they have something that they want doing.  
  
She’s distracted from that train of thought as she’s forced to play an extended game of dodge-the-fishing-net with the fishing boats already on the water - if they ever left - but the idea lingers in the back of her mind, quiet and unassuming, as she heads east through the Shore Lands of An Teng.

((Cog + Travel))  
((... : (.))  
((2+, uh, 0=2. 1 sux.))

Well, look on the bright side, Keris thinks to herself at midday. She’s certainly seen a lot more of An Teng than she had before!  
  
The land is very... domesticated. Apart from the mangrove forests - and even they have people working through them, fishing or harvesting plants - there are cultivated fields and orchards everywhere. They’re broken up by market towns and the near-regular scatterings of villages. Occasionally she sees manor houses - some of them built from the white stone of old buildings, but in more modern styles - and a few high pagoda-castles and temple complexes.  
  
In her defence, she _did_ get quite distracted by the discovery of what could only be some Dragonblood’s summer house built on a cliff which couldn’t be natural, rising above the mangrove swamps. It’s built of marble, in a distinctively different style.

She takes a break from the river and approaches the place from the cliffs, running up the craggy rock face and sequestering herself amidst the vegetation at the top to peek and listen in on what’s inside. She’s reminded, vaguely, of the old gutted place back in Matasque that Yamal had once visited; which had the otter-demon living in it. The architecture is different - for a start, this house still exists - but something about the Dragonblood-owned holidaying home feels similar.

It’s quiet. Oh, not entirely quiet. There are animals on the grounds - including a smugly purring cat sitting on top of the stables licking itself, but there are only a few groundskeepers and staff around. Some serving staff are scrubbing out the floor in the main room.

((...))  
(( Temperance: 2 dice. FAIL.))

Keris has always liked a challenge. And this one is so perfectly presented that it would almost be a _crime_ to waste it. Her eyes light up and her hair twitches in happy greed as she slinks closer, weaving across the grounds until she reaches a wall and shooting up it onto the roof. She shivers happily and bites down on a giggle, creeping across the roof to a part of the building mostly free of staff and sliding in through a window.

Keris shivers in joy. Whoever built this place was a genius. The marble keeps the heat out, and it’s exquisitely polished. In fact, everything in here is made of stone. She’s snuck into a bedroom, and even the tables and the dressers are made of shining polished stone.

She moves with confidence but without hurry, tasting the doorknob and tapping on the walls here and there to see if there are any hidden compartments, keeping an ear out for anything immaterial. With only staff and groundskeepers here, she can be relatively assured that she won’t be interrupted as she looks for _every item of value in this place, literally all of them_.

Keris finds that she’s thinking better in the cold and the quiet. Roaming around, tasting things, she decides she likes this place. Her head feels clear in a way that it didn’t in Lotus.  
  
Tasting the bed covers, she notes that no one’s slept here for months. Likewise, when she rummages through the walk in closets, the vast array of gowns and clothes in the Realm style haven’t been worn in the same period of time. Oh, apart from one, which was worn by... hmm, a Tengese woman, short - shorter than the owner - for a brief period. Probably someone wondering what they’d look like on her.   
  
The same is confirmed by her examination of the other family rooms, all made of lavishly cool marble. There’s even more outfits and gowns and robes for men and women alike - and they’re just sitting here unused. There’s hunting outfits and there’s dining outfits which are Tengese in style but made distinctly Realm-ish. There’s incredibly lavish abstract wall hangings and tapestries and there’s murals painted in paint literally made of powdered jade. The entire place drips with opulence - but a totally different kind of opulence to the kind Kasseni had. The white marble dominates and Keris can’t help but find the way the jade paint is used in small amounts to be incredibly beautiful.

Keris is awed and impressed, but irritated. There’s a lot of beauty and wealth on display, but nothing really... stealable. The outfits are inferior to her wonderful pretty gorgeous awesome Amulet, and the murals... well, even she can’t walk off with an entire wall.  
  
... though the thought has merit. She pictures the owner coming back to find his whole house gone, and has to suppress another giggling fit. Maybe she should work out how to move bigger things into her Domain? She asks Dulmea to note it down for investigation later, and moves on.  
  
This, she thinks, is the house of a Dragonblood - a Dynast, in all probability. Even from what she’s seen of Sasi - who is no fighter, and yet formed a sword at her hip when she used Keris’s Amulet - weapons are important to Dynasts. This might be a holiday home, but there’s got to be an armoury somewhere in it. Maybe that’ll have something interesting.

There is indeed an armoury - in fact, there are two. One of them is presumably where the bodyguards and the like store their armaments, as well as whatever people protect this place from raiders. It’s half empty, and the spears and suits of lamellar armour are... nothing exceptional. Boringly mundane.  
  
There’s also a rather more elaborate one in the family’s area. It is gorgeously decorated and there’s an abstract dragon mural covering one wall.  
  
... what it lacks is any weapons. Presumably they take them with them or something.

Keris pouts heavily. Well, it’s a bust, then. Nothing useful - if they’ve taken the weapons, they’ll definitely have taken everything else. She’s vaguely tempted to burn the place down out of spite, but sadly marble probably won’t burn that well.  
  
Saddened at the loss, she makes a note of the location just in case, and heads back to the river to continue her trip.

Eventually Keris manages to find the Blue Snake River and follow it up river. As she heads up the flow, past the many barges floating down the wide river delta choked with rich silt, the land gets more and more densely vegetated beyond the river valley. She can see orchards whenever she surfaces to look around, and poppy fields on the slopes of hillsides.   
  
As she goes further, though, the hills get steeper and steeper and orchards are replaced by hardwood forests interspersed by rice paddies, while on the steep hills are stepped cuttings with neatly stacked farming terraces.  
  
There’s a riverport built into the side of a hill, which looks like it’s literally been cut clean in two to permit the passage of the flow. Indeed, when she looks up she can see a bridge made of white stone, packed with houses on top. Down by the banks there are steep stairs and lifts which connect the port to the town above. This rings a bell to her - yes, that’s how the maps and the book described White Bridge Rising Over Water, the seat of the county held by Danuwong of the Red Mountain. Compared to the City of the Steel Lotus, it’s a backwater dump, and even more so when compared to Nexus. Keris would say there’s probably only a few thousand residents here, based on what she can hear.

She swims past it, further up-river, and climbs out a mile or so upriver to afford her some concealment as she cloaks herself in shadow and takes the form of a Tengese monk. Hmm. Family, family... she should probably have a family name, since it’s so important here. “Dulmeadokht” probably won’t work.  
  
Rolling the question over in her mind, she pulls out her Cherub Shrine in the privacy of a large copse and sends a message to Boronomo telling Sasi that she’s arrived, and that she’ll make sure to be alone at nightfall in case Sasi needs to send any messages back.

Kerras Floraz, she decides. She’s heard a couple of variations on the surname here and there, and the given name is close enough to her own that she’ll respond to it easily enough.

Pulling a firmin-resin staff out from her Domain and covering it in her shadow to veil it as gnarled hardwood, she adjusts her threadbare outfit and sets off for the city, smiling with the honest, innocent joy of the devout come to spread the word of god.


	4. Chapter 4

Staff in hand, the disguised Keris strides into town. She had to take a chance to dry off and clean up before she went in, because the river water coming out of White Bridge isn’t the cleanest. And yes, as she watches, there are people emptying buckets of sewage out of windows down into the river.

Wrinkling her nose, she takes half an hour or so to walk around the town and see where everything is. The size of the place is almost confusing; it’s so much _smaller_ than she’s used to. Everyone seems to know most people, at least by sight. She can barely blend into the crowds at all, and she’s fairly sure she’s drawing some attention. She keeps an especial eye out for the Red Mountain properties.

There are quite a few of them. She can recognise the iconographs carved into the white stone. The biggest, though, is the pagoda-like castle built at the highest point of the bridge, right next to the temple to the Golden Lord. While the temple is red-roofed and decorated with traces of gilt paint, the castle is made of simpler stone. She thinks it used to be better maintained than it is now - it could do with a fresh coat of paint, and there’s some smoke blackness on the walls.

Keris hums to herself and keeps walking. She has a fair idea of how she’s going to attract attention - she can hardly just walk up and demand an audience, after all. Her music, though, can ensnare and bewitch with ease. All she has to do is play a hymn where she’ll be heard, and she can start preaching.

She idly flips through the different prayer-songs she composed under Dulmea’s critique as she scans the town for signs of wealth. The most obvious place to set up is right outside the largest Red Mountain property. That is, however, also right outside the temple to the Golden Lord, who might not take too kindly to it. On the other hand, she _can_ use the innocence of the Great Mother to excuse a lot...

((Both looking for signs of wealth and economic hardship in the town to get an idea of how much they’re suffering financially, and also scanning for any good places to set up and start religion-busking, with “right next to the temple” as one possibility.))

Fiscally, it’s... complicated. There’s a slight edge of seediness to some of the buildings, a feeling that they might have gone a little too long without a touch-up of paint, but it’s just a feeling. The guesthouses down by the river seem to be doing well, and the market is... well, crap compared to anything in Nexus, but it doesn’t seem to be doing terribly for a backwater like this.

Keris wrinkles her nose in vague annoyance, arriving back at the temple. It might be safer to start a cult among the lower classes first, but it would be slower, too. The temple, then, and one of the more general chants.

She finds a wall that’s far enough from the temple that she won’t literally be playing directly outside it but close enough that she’s still within a stone’s throw or so of the castle’s entrance. Sitting cross-legged on the dirt, she pulls a small psaltery out of her robes via her Domain. Hopefully small enough that nobody will notice it wasn’t in there all along.

She takes a deep breath, reminding herself to breathe properly, before pulling on Rathan’s light. Not enough to be visible; just enough to seep into her demeanour and tint her every word and gesture. Innocence, vulnerability; blamelessness. She saturates herself with all three.

And then she starts to play; singing along as she plucks at the strings in the half-lilting voice she’s heard other wandering preachers use in their prayer-songs and poems.

((Beauty-Over-Truth used; 5m, 1wp spent.  
Per+Exp; 3+5+3 Time-Strung Harpist+1 bonus {enthrall an audience}+2 stunt=14. 7 sux.))

Well, of course people love it. Keris is very good at what she does. People are humming or singing it when they walk away, and she gets quite a few copper coins tossed her way. More notable, though is how she can hear people muttering about “Oh, he’s just a foreigner,” and “He probably doesn’t know any better,” in between admiring the music. They can tell that she’s not from around here somehow, despite her appearance.

All well and good, but not enough. She’s being tolerated, but what she wants is _attention_. Especially from the people in charge. Shifting into another melody on autopilot - this one a plea to the Sower of Wealth to bestow good fortune and great prosperity on the town that gives shelter to one of their followers, which requires a little improvisation of the lyrics - she considers her options.

Well, she could start preaching. In fact... hmm. In fact, yes, if she just waits for a good moment, she can pretend that her prayers have been answered, and say that her patron has blessed them for their kindness in her time of need. Or something. She can probably improvise the details.

And if she manages to time it to a point where someone important-looking is coming in or out of the castle, well, that would just make it better, wouldn’t it?

Keris times it very well indeed. The music is a good holding action, but when she notices a commotion in the streets she rises and begins to preach.

It’s a woman in a deep blue sari, which offsets her dark hair and bright eyes well. She’s lavishly adorned with golden jewelry, and wears the Red Mountain iconograph in a tastefully done necklace. She’s flanked by guards dressed similarly, and more servants who are moving big pots of rice into position.

“Here, my children,” she calls out to the crowd, which is thicker than it was before and many of them - Keris notices - are carrying rice bowls. “I am mother of this land and so I give this to you! You shall not starve!” There is a ritualism and formality to her words, as if this is something which happens predictably. As the crowd neatly queues up, it probably is.

The woman seems to be paying some attention to Keris as the rice kitchen hands out free plain boiled rice.

Keris is nothing if not shameless. Well, actually she’s a lot of other things, but things like “embarrassment” and “shame” definitely aren’t often among them, at least as long as one politely ignores the early stages of her relationship with Sasi.

Which is why she keeps playing and waits until the woman - and quite a lot of the crowd - are looking her way before meeting her eyes and gasping, jerking as if shocked by some sudden stimulus. If the specific way in which she flinches happens to rake a hand over the psaltery’s strings so as to draw a rising chord from them, this is surely coincidence, and nothing more.

“My lord!” she cries, staring into the distance with the wondrous expression of one having a religious experience. Well, one having a religious experience which doesn’t involve an All-Maker or an Unquestionable in close proximity, since that sort of expression is more “terrified” than “awed” in her experience. “My lord, I hear and understand! Your generosity knows no bounds!” She rises to her feet and stumbles artfully with a vulnerable gasp, ending up on her knees in front of the Red Mountain woman.

She bites the inside of her cheek until the faintest glimmer of tears come, and looks up with wide, shimmering eyes. “Fair lady; you are surely kind and giving beyond compare. You show such compassion to those below you that you impress even my lord and lady; the Sower of Wealth. Please - they have sent me a vision, telling me to act in their name and reward your generosity. May I pass their gift on to you?”

((Per + Pres))  
((3+5+3 Mendaciloquent Maverick+1 Style bonus {... honestly I think any of them work, but we’ll go with “grain of truth” there}+2 stunt+3 Kimmy ExSux {patronage and kindness are real, thinks she is fair, no lasting generosity, demands payment}=14. HAHA WHAT 12+3=15 sux, lawl. 6m spent, 4 regenned.))

The woman inclines her head respectfully to the monk, and is actually blushing. She makes her way to Keris, holding rice. She’s quite pretty, at least in a Tengese way, although the lines around her eyes and the the hints of white at her temples reinforce Keris’s guess that she’s probably in her mid thirties. “We have always been friends to the worshippers of the gods, no matter where they come from,” she says. “Come, respectful one, please eat,” she says, passing the bowl to him. “Then you may tell me. I am Joyous Raven of Red Mountain, and I am mother to these lands and all who dwell in them, as my mother was before me and my daughter shall me.”

Never one to say “no” to food, Keris bows to her respectfully and takes the bowl, slowing down somewhat from her usual pace of “wolfing it down” but still going more for efficiency in input than savouring the taste.

“My thanks, Lady Raven,” she says when she’s finished. “I have been on the road for some time, and food can get scarce between towns.” She brushes a few loose grains from her robes, hooks her psaltery onto the cord that serves as a belt, and uses her staff to climb to her feet again.

“My lord and lady are the Sower of Wealth,” she explains. “They are a generous patron who gives to those who give to others, and I gladly turned from my path to follow them.” She looks up from under long, almost delicate lashes. “I have been following faint dreams and auguries for weeks, until I found myself here. And now they have appeared to me in person; clear and vivid! They have shown me the location of a lord’s ransom in gold; lost to the ages, and commanded me to lead you to it as reward for your generosity.”

((... welp. You hit her with a 15 success social attack and she’d have to spend 2wp to think ill of you anyway. So... hmm. On the other hand, that’s quite unbelievable. Hmm.))  
((Oh come on, I have to have hit her with, like, double her MDV there.))  
((Yes, but you’re running into the certainty that... well, ‘things like this don’t just happen’. I’m trying to simulate her mindstate here))  
((Well, is she interested enough to at least follow and see if he’s telling the truth?))  
((Yes. I’m just trying to work out how she’d act in accordance with An Teng customs, while also being wary that someone fooled this innocent old monk in some kind of political ploy))  
((Heh.))

The woman - Joyous Raven - looks momentarily stunned. “I must thank you for this news,” she says breathily. “Come, come - I must find my youngest brother and send him with you in thanks. You look tired, wisened one - let it never be said that we as a family do not respect the gods. While you wait, we must give you a chance to wash and eat.”

There’s a muttering coming from the crowd - a mix of interest and respect.

Keris bows again. “Your kindness is appreciated, Lady Raven,” she says, and follows where the woman leads, resolving to keep an ear on her while she has the no-doubt urgent conversation with said brother while she thinks the old monk is out of earshot.

((Keris didn’t pay enough attention to Sasi~))  
((Her name is Joyous Raven, her _family_ is Red Mountain. Calling her Lady Raven is very improper - also, she’s a Countess, not a Lady. But Keris is obviously a stupid, earnest foreigner. Not her fault.))  
((: P))  
((Perhaps one of the servants will quietly correct her~))

The urgent conversation goes much as expected. He is ordered to go with the monk and take guards, and try to keep things quiet insofar as it’s possible because they don’t want to look like fools.

Meanwhile, Keris is somewhat corrected in a patronising manner by one of the house servants about her mode of address, as the man helps “him” scrub himself and clean himself up.

((... what’s the correct form of address for the younger brother? Is he a Count, or what?))  
((No title - he’s not a landholder because he didn’t marry a woman who held land.))  
((Hmm, actually, no, he’s probably a baron.))  
((Yeah, baron. Teeny tiny holding which approximates to ‘one village’, is at his sister’s beck and call, has his tenancy on her lands.))

She ducks her head humbly and apologises profusely for her mistake - which seems to satisfy the servant who corrected her, and sparks amusement and a few comments along the lines of “if only they all learnt so easily” from the ones surreptitiously gawking at her.

Clean and free from the dust of the road - and with a hastily washed and mostly dried robe - she takes her staff in hand again and heads out to lead them to the “treasure”. She allows herself to be somewhat melodramatic; drawing a flower in the dirt and resting her staff at the centre before letting go. It falls, pointing in roughly the direction she entered the town from, and after casting some seeds onto the ground and murmuring over the patterns they form for a moment, she nods and stands.

“My lord’s gift lies this way,” she says with confidence. “Hidden under water; lost to time.” She bows low to Joyous Raven and her younger brother. “Baron Red Mountain, you honour me with your presence. Countess, I apologise for any offence I may have given in ignorance.”

With that, and after a few quiet formalities, she and the Baron’s guards slip out of town and set off walking. Keris leads; walking at the agonisingly slow pace of a spry-but-aging old man. It takes twenty minutes or so before she comes to a place that works - a large, slow river that winds through the rice paddies nearby; deep and thick with plenty of mud in its riverbed. Keris plants her staff deep in the shore silt, gathers her robes and wades in until the water reaches her knees, then her waist, then her chest. She takes a deep breath and plunges in, digging at the muddy riverbed with her hands, muddying the already-murky waters still further.

Which is rather good cover for her pulling a carefully-selected chest out of her Domain, underwater and with her body between it and the watching guards, some of whom are starting to look like they’re thinking about coming in and helping. The chest is old, and it looks convincingly water-logged - Keris thinks it might actually be one of the ones that had been on the boat she sunk back in Matasque. Or maybe one of the ones since then.

Regardless, it’s about half-full of the gold that Sasi transmuted for her, and she plonks it down into the shallow pit she’s dug, covering it in mud and scooping an armful or two inside for good measure.

“Here!” she calls back, surfacing for air. “It is here! Help me get it to land!”

The Baron all but dives in himself, and his guards are not far behind him. Between them, they manhandle the waterlogged crate to land.

“Golden Lord,” the baron - who only looks to be in his early twenties - whispers. It is a sentiment expressed by several of his guards. “What could we have done to earn such a favour?”

Keris tosses them an offended look, panting and shivering from her efforts. “It... it was...” she lapses into a brief coughing fit, and has to sit down. Several of the guards, looking considerably less dismissive, rush to help her. “It was the generosity of... thank you young man... of my lord and lady. They sow wealth in the worthy as a farmer sows seeds in fertile soil; to grow...” Another bout of coughing. Someone drapes a warm coat around her. “To... grow prosperity and piety... in those they favour,” she finishes weakly.

“Your lord and lady?” he asks.

Keris nods tiredly. “The Sower of Wealth; in their male and female aspects,” she explains, pulling the coat around her. “My patron; whom I follow and preach for. It is they who have bestowed this gift of favour upon you; having judged you worthy of it.”

“I... I see,” the man says. “I... uh. Well, I’ve never heard of them before.” The man pulls off his robe and wrings it out.

Keris chuckles wryly. “I am not surprised. I have travelled a long way from where I learned of them. They gave me many things, and eventually I asked to bring word of them back here, to my homeland.”

Inwardly she smirks. Not only is... a fair amount of that technically true to some extent, but it’s also quite a good cover. She looks Tengese in this guise, but if she pretends she left An Teng for some reason, it neatly answers why she’s so foreign in her etiquette and manners.

All she has to do is think of a reason she left for so long - one that makes her seem pitiful and sympathetic and harmless. Ooo! Maybe she got kidnapped by Lintha and the Sower of Wealth saved her or something? Well, it can wait until someone actually asks her, she decides.

The man seems to be weighing up some choices. “We should move this back. Quietly,” he orders the men. “Last thing we want is a riot. All of you will be paid very well for your silence, as well as the debt of my family. If you speak out of turn, your families will suffer ill-luck.”

This seems to be taken into due consideration and is viewed as a combination of carrot and stick.

The cat may be somewhat out of the bag, though. As they make their way through the tight almost corridor-like streets of the town built atop the bridge, Keris hears no small amount of conversation talking about the crazy monk who said he’d found treasure from the gods.

“Baron Red Mountain,” she asks quietly. “I wouldn’t dare impose on your hospitality, but could I stay a few days in your town? My health isn’t what it once was, and the river was cold.”

He holds his hands together, and respectfully - thankfully, even - inclines his head to Keris. “Venerable one,” he says, “no doubt Older Sister shall always make you at home - and if she does not, you shall always be welcome on my lands for the service you have done my family.”

The sentiment is much the same from the countess, who immediately assigns some men to help Keris to bed and calls for a healer to look him over. The room Keris receives is clean, whitewashed, and cool - it’s even warmer inland than it was on the coast, and so the cool room is a blessing.

Well, she thinks. That went well. It’s actually a little hard to get some time to herself - she spends most of the evening praying quietly to Shashalme with a promise that she’s working to create a cult for the Unquestionable in one of An Teng’s powerful families. It isn’t until some way into the night that she’s able to quietly sneak out and find a secluded spot to send a message to Boromono.

“Sasi,” she tells the cherub quietly. “Made contact with Red Mountain as an old monk. Gave them the first gold cache. They’re very grateful, so I’ll stay here until I can get them worshipping, then head back. Probably not safe to contact me back just yet; they’re paying me lots of attention. Love you.”

That done, she returns to her bed and blessedly cool room, and spends the night deep in thought. That lot of gold was easy, and not hard to explain. But she should probably vary her “gifts” a little to keep things from getting suspicious. Another vision should work, but not for a while, and... hmm. Yes, perhaps to buried treasure this time? Something like that. She resolves to look over her maps of An Teng in her dreams, just in case there’s anything interesting marked in her general vicinity that she could look for - something that’s been genuinely forgotten here would be even better than more gold.

((Oh, Keris. You’re refining your cult technique as we watch. Next time, you’re probably going to be “interestingly exotic” instead of a monk.))  
((: P))  
((Hmm, so. Cog+Investigation to examine the maps?))  
((... shit.))  
((Yep!))  
(( : ( ))  
((Better stunt well as you study them in your dreams!))

“So that... went... well...” Keris starts as she materialises in her library, where Dulmea is reading. She trails off halfway, staring at the half-visible wind-waif crouched on a slowly-eroding empty shelf; intently studying a book being held open for her by a musician-serf. It seems to have musical scores in it, from what Keris can see.

“... um?” she asks. “What is she... since when does she... _how_ is she even...”

“I am attempting to teach her some of the formalities of musical composition,” Dulmea says wearily. “She indicated her interest. And if she is reading in here, she is not running around outside and destroying things.”

“... right,” Keris agrees, not really sure how to take that. Echo turns to beam at her for a moment before going back to reading. “Right. Uh. Okay. I’m going to just... yeah. As long as she doesn’t break anything in here, either.”

“I will do my best to stop her,” promises Dulmea with a long-suffering sigh. “Go and study your maps, child. Start with the most recent ones.”

Keris goes. And then returns, because the sight of Echo tracing a hair-tendril along an inch away from the page as she reads - and attempting to hum along with the score, from what her face seems to be doing - is impossible to ignore.

Nonetheless, she shuffles through the maps until she comes to the Shogunate ones, and after locating the Blue Snake river and tracing it up to her approximate location, starts hunting around the area for any interesting-looking marks or signs or sigils.

It takes most of the night - not helped by the fact that it took her several hours to realise that the course of the river has shifted notably and that she was looking at the wrong bridge, but Keris thinks she’s found the location of a major town which just... doesn’t seem to be there anymore on the more modern maps. Perhaps twenty to thirty miles north of here, there used to be a town called the Catalyst of the Red Sunrise. That’s unfortunately outside of their lands, but the holdings here are not the largest - they’re certainly nothing compared to what domain lords in Malfeas can have.

Twenty to thirty miles is less than an hour away, Keris thinks. If she can get a day off to go meditate and pray in the woods or something, that would be enough to go and check it out. But first she needs to do some setup work here. She needs to preach her cult.

Happily, she’s pretty sure that after bringing home a chest full of gold, she’ll be getting at least some questions about the spirit who pointed the way to it.

She wakes early, does half an hour of praying - well, okay, reading a Malfean folktale to Echo, who appears to find it hilarious for tiny murderwindy reasons of her own, but it’s not like anyone observing can tell the difference between that and devout, silent prayer - and then heads out of her nice, cool room to see if breakfast is on offer.

Echo particularly liked the bit where they invited all the enemy demons to dinner and then fed them all the food they could eat and then murdered them when they were feeling full and were drunk on chalcanth.

((oh eko. u hav a malfean sense of humour. or possibly an adorjani one.))  
((Sigh.))  
((Echo also likes the Malfean fairy-tale about the demon who was princess of an ice floe kingdom in the Demon Sea but dreamed of going to land and carving out her own fief there. An Unquestionable of the Great Mother offered to give her the chance as long as she followed its rules, and then it gave her legs but cut her tongue out so she had to do it without speech. While she managed to carve out a sizeable fief in the three-times-thirty cries of the tomescu it gave her, she wasn't able to amass the tithe it demanded in time, so it took back its gifts and didn't replace what it had taken and threw her back in the sea to drown.))  
((... and then took the fief and added it to its lands.))  
((Echo: *lols! why wasn't she happy with what she had?*))

Joyous Raven finds Keris eventually. “Venerable one,” she tells Keris, hovering nervously, “unfortunately my husband is still absent, although I have sent a messenger downriver to where I last heard he was. Please, I insist, stay at the very least until he can thank you as well.” She seems nervous. “I as mother of the land have the duties of keeping the gods happy and the spiritual balance of my domain in harmony,” she says, abruptly even as Keris eats onion bread. “I do not wish to offend your god - or gods. What might I do to thank them for such an uncountably generous gift?”

Keris smiles, and begins to share the teachings of the Sower of Wealth. She pulls out her psaltery again, and plays a few of the hymns and prayer-songs quietly as she talks - which draws an unobtrusive crowd of servants in, hovering around the edges of the room and in the corridors outside.

She keeps it simple for now. The nature of the Sower - neither male nor female, but instead fluid with a male and a female aspect. Rich and generous; a tender and farmer of men who sows seeds of prosperity in the soil of virtue and piety. Joyous Raven seems rather pleased at the implication in that.

She describes a few of the more common prayers - thanks and gratitude for the Sower’s favour, praise for their compassion and generosity - and examples of some of the sacrifices they like. She even drops a few hints that she left An Teng under dark circumstances, and that the Sower rescued her.

“But eventually I asked to return here,” she finishes, still plucking music from the psaltery - the first hymn she’d started playing outside the castle, in fact. “Back to my homeland, to spread the Sower’s patronage to my people, and repay them for all they have given me.”

Keris keeps an ear on the woman as she talks, adjusting her music to reflect the woman’s aura and listening for any fluctuations or deviations in it, tracking the rises and falls as their conversation - for Joyous Raven isn’t just a passive audience; she asks questions as well as listening - touches on various topics.

She seems to be a devout woman who worries a lot about keeping the spiritual harmony in the land in balance.

((3 dot principle - The Spiritual Harmony Of My County))

“Well, that is very interesting,” she says, leaning in. Her chaperone coughs, and she shifts and sits back. “While I of course will need to consult with my husband, I certainly would support you and your most generous patrons in their petitioning with the local Immaculates for prayer days, and if you are looking for a shrine... well, you need only ask.”

Keris draws a mudra of blessing in the air and bows her head. “A shrine would be truly wonderful - I shall speak highly of your offer in my prayers tonight. I will certainly stay long enough to see it established, though whether I remain beyond that... well, I will ask the Sower where I can do the most good.”

“Of course, of course,” Joyous Raven says, nodding her head, rising and smoothing down her sari. “Thank you very much, venerable one,” she says.

“It was my pleasure,” Keris replies, dipping her head. “You honour me with your interest.”

“My family is in your debt,” she says.

Keris... isn’t sure what to say to that, but hesitates only briefly. In most cases, saying _something_ is better than clamming up, as long as you don’t completely muck it up. “My... I am... I merely followed my patron’s wishes,” she stumbles. “And I have faith that their favour is well-placed in you.”

With that said, Joyous Raven leaves the room, leaving Keris alone to finish her breakfast.


	5. Chapter 5

The day is hot and muggy. This far inland, there isn’t even a sea breeze to cool the land down, and thus the mix of heat and humidity is stultifying.

Keris finishes her breakfast - and then another helping of breakfast, plus a little bit to take with her - and then makes a few excuses about praying in solitude before slipping out of the town. Double-checking the Shogunate map which marks the Catalyst of the Red Sunrise, she slips into the river and sheds her monk disguise as she starts out swimming.

Unfortunately, the location itself is somewhat to the north-east of Keris’ current location, and there’s only so far she can go upriver before she’ll have to cross the countryside, heading into the northern reaches of An Teng. As far as she’s been able to find out, the location is in a minor barony belonging to a member of the Grey Owl family.

She gets as far as she can, estimating her position against the map with Dulmea’s help, and while she’s pretty sure she’s a mile or three off the actual closest point, the shape of the river is intact enough that she’s in roughly the right spot as she surfaces onto the banks and sets off cross-country.

((... I was going to ask what kind of things she’d brought with her and whether she’d prepared for a cross-country hike, but then I remembered Keris))  
(( : 3 ))  
((I <3 Devil-Domain))  
((And Adorjani running))  
((Well, there I was talking more about how she just sleeps in ditches and eats whatever.))  
((Well yes. But she’s fast enough that she should be able to get there and back in a day.))  
((Twenty to thirty miles isn’t that far - she _runs_ at something like 32mph.))

The northern areas of the Middle Lands of An Teng are hilly and often densely forested. There are lots of little streams and tributaries running between the seemingly endless dips and falls in the land. In some areas all these little river valleys are filled with farming while tea and woods are grown on the hillsides, but here Keris is moving away from the more densely populated areas of An Teng and so as a result some of the valleys are boggy areas only inhabited by peasant farmers.

This, perhaps unsurprisingly, makes navigation rather harder than it should be. Not least because a lot of these smaller rivers _weren’t here_ when the map she’s using was made.

She makes do - the rivers are all different, but the hills are mostly the same - though looking at them from the top down is very different from being _in between them_ \- and she strikes lucky with a big dip in the land that’s almost an exact half-circle, just like it is on the map, which puts her onto the fact that she’s half a mile away from where she’d thought she was.

((Basically, there’s _shittonnes_ of bamboo in this area, and if you don’t have humans clearing it, it just takes over the area. There are bamboo species which can grow 250cm in 24 hours))  
((holy shit))  
((And it’s the growing season at the moment))  
((... of course, Keris can just run over the top~))  
((But yeah, yeesh. Not fun for navigation.))

It takes some time, but Keris manages to find the barony which is the area her map leads her to believe the lost city is in. The baronial estate and the nearest village is deep in the bamboo forests, next to a circular lake which wasn’t there on the old maps. The lake is shallow and choked with plantlife, but Keris can see people out in the water, fishing. The farms cluster around the edge of the water, where the bamboo has been cleared. There are no stone castles here - what has to be the baron’s building is a two storey wooden house which looks slightly fancier and larger than the peasants’ one-storey buildings.

Howler monkeys scream in the distance, up on the bumpy hillside which overlooks the flatter areas. There’s a few stone ruins on the slope of the hill, but they’re not the white stone Keris has seen in other ruins - it looks more like they’re made of local grey stone. Maybe that means they’re younger. She’s not sure.

She ignores the barony for now, effortlessly dancing across the bamboo shoots and working her way around the cleared area towards the ruins - dodging an annoyed-looking orangutan en route, though it doesn’t do much more than grunt at her. She lands gracefully on one of the walls, propelling herself up with the force of a bamboo shoot bent almost to the breaking point by her deliberately heavy landing before snapping back and launching her upwards.

((Reaction + Investigation to examine the area))

Keris’s nostrils flare as she looks around, head cocked, ears alert. She winces as another group of howler monkeys start hooting nearby, though they scatter when she sends a handful of gravel from the crumbling walls whipping towards them with pinpoint accuracy and enough force to break bamboo shoots as thick as her spearhaft.

With the annoyingly loud monkeys gone, she continues at a rather more leisurely pace, occasionally whipping another rock at any animals that start making too much noise nearby. She tastes the stone walls and decaying mortar, raps on them with her ears pressed to the surfaces and slices away bamboo with long, scything sweeps of her Lance to get at the ground around them.

((5+0+2 stunt+2 Coadj=9. Haha, _wow_ , 9 successes. 22 for PWL and HWN-related things, though this would be a really _useful_ time to have that SWLIHN touch charm.))

By the time a Season of Earth rainstorm comes along, Keris has made really good process. The stone buildings here were built from local stone, but some of them seem to be more similar to the white stone buildings in design. She finds plenty more buildings here, on the slopes, but they’ve been consumed by the jungle. Bamboo spouts from shattered stone and there’s occasional patches of grey under the earth.

And then she finds the ruins of the complex. It’s a slight rise in the earth, a place where underlying foundations have survived where buildings haven’t. When she tastes the earth, she can taste the white stone lying under layers of soil. Occasional patches of white stone can be seen, little hills which might once have been pillars or walls. And there’s an abandoned hut up here - a modern structure, built from old stone.

And then she hears the echo. It’s not from something she knocks on - well, not directly. The echo of her knocking on the earth comes back to her from somewhere in the hillside, slightly displayed and distorted.

By now, all thought of her original purpose in coming here has been forgotten in favour of curiosity and the desire to get out of the loud loud _loud_ rain and thunder. She follows the echo, growling at the hammering rain that’s making it hard to _hear_ , dammit, hard to pinpoint what she’s looking for. She searches through the overgrown buildings, rapping the butt of her Lance on the floors, scouring any hint of white stone for a way in, a way under, into the hollow she knows is there.

It comes as some surprise when she pinpoints that the echo isn’t coming from the stone under her feet. It’s coming from the _hillside_ , somewhere behind the bamboo curtain. She frowns and chases it, only to be stymied by the omnipresent bamboo _again_. Growling in annoyance, Keris charges it and calls Echo out in her wake.  She pauses for a moment as she reaches the echo’s source, feeling Echo perch happily on her back, and behind her the entire section of forest collapses. Shoots fall like wheat before the scythe, along with everything living in them - monkeys, lemurs, birds, snakes - and it’s bare seconds before a long trail of open ground has appeared, the ground almost invisible under a crazy criss-crossing carpet of felled bamboo.

What’s revealed is a recess in the rock, which had been veiled by the bamboo totally. It’s choked with debris and there’s a stream dribbling out of it. A cave!  Keris moans happily and crams herself as far into it as possible, sticking her hair in her ears for good measure. She cups a handful of streamwater and brings it up to drink, tasting where it’s come from and flowed through as she investigates how deep the cave goes.

There’s a decidedly... _metallic_ taste to the water. It tastes like... Keris looks for words. It tastes like the water sometimes got in the wells around Nighthammer when she’d gone begging there, or more technically when she’d gone stealing when pretending to beg. The cave itself narrows fairly quickly, but Keris thinks it’s a rockfall. The water is trickling out under the fallen-in ceiling. She can hear a rather more extensive echo-sound past this tiny gap, especially when she sticks her head in the water. It’d be a squeeze to get past.

Sizing it up carefully, she backs up, unplugs her ears, and closes her eyes. Even in here, the echoes from the rain outside paint the entire cave in minute detail. And... yes, it’ll be a squeeze to get through, but there _is_ enough space for her to get through. Just about. She’d have to be oriented just the right way, though. If she cleared the rocks away it would be easier, but... she’d risk destabilising the ceiling, and she really doesn’t want to risk that.

She listens for a moment or two, just enough to be sure, and then takes off at a run towards the blocked-in part. Just as she’s about to run into the wall of rubble, she half-leaps to the left, pushes off the cave wall with a foot, _twists_ her trajectory with her hair to give her body a spin, tucks her arms and hair in tight, aaaand... slides right on through. Well, most of the way through, with a bruised ankle and a wedged-in shoulder for her trouble. But it’s the principle of the thing that counts.

It’s almost pitch black, and the only way Keris managed to get through was because the water was deeper on the other side of the low ceiling. Tiny glimmers of light are seeping in from outside, but this isn’t as much of an obstacle for Keris as it would be for other people. She’s now in a nearly lightless cavern, but her every movement and the dripping of water makes more than enough sound for her to hear by.

Dipping down, she squirms along the flow of the river until she approaches a more hollow space inside the earth. There’s a secret lake here, perhaps twenty metres from the surface, slowly being filled up by the dribbles down from the roof. The water comes from here, trickling out under the collapsed passageway.

Keris is... _fairly_ sure that the walls of this chamber were originally machined. The trickling water might have washed away the stone, but there’s a few areas which sound all rough. And then her suspicions are confirmed when she finds the metal fragments at the bottom of the pool - and what sound like more passageways, totally choked by rubble.

This stuff, at least, she isn’t too worried about destabilising. She gets to work, whacking the blockages until she has a fair idea of where the largest rocks and keystones holding everything together are, and then stabs and hacks at them until they disintegrate. The occasional gout of green fire burning one or two particularly stubborn rocks to fine ash speeds the process along, and it isn’t until she’s mostly cleared out the first tunnel that it occurs to Keris to consider whether opening a possibly-non-flooded tunnel at the bottom of her newfound lake is a good idea or not.

((Roll me Cog + Occult to see at what _point_ she realises this.))  
((Oh, Keris. 3+3+2 stunt=8. 5 sux.))

It’s the sound of running water and the slight pressure change which warns Keris of the damage she’s doing. It’s not coming from the passageway - not directly, at least. But there’s a crack there. The tunnel here is a lot more obviously machined - it hasn’t been eroded as well by the countless dripping water.

((It’s not a non-flooded tunnel. The water is slowly leaking out the sides of the tunnel because Keris has moved some of the debris which was blocking it. Basically, if Keris is on the first floor of this hollow space, there’s a lot of rubble and debris down on the bottom floor, and it’s flooded. She’s moving the debris out of tunnels on the bottom floor.))

She pauses, and somewhat sheepishly remembers about several times when... well, Calley had a lot of words for them, but “idiots” was one of the kinder ones, damaged the bottom of a canal enough that it broke into the honeycomb labyrinth of cellars and subterranean spaces underneath Nexus’s streets. It generally wasn’t good for things immediately above _or_ below the breach.

Mentally, she hears Dulmea sigh a very patient and very weary sigh.

“... okay, so. Um.” says Keris. “Maybe I should... just...” She lets her Lance flicker away and shifts upwards slightly as she considers her situation. “So... something’s leaking out of the sides of here. I can’t tell where too, though. And if I break through the wall to find out, we’re might have the whole lake pouring down past us.” She bites her lip. “Hmm. Dulmea? Any ideas?”

“Hmm,” Dulmea observes. “Child. This brings to mind a place where I once took down a rebellious serf who had gathered a band of loyal followers. It was an old mine within the flesh of the King, which the Mother had once flooded. The walls had been eroded in the same way, and the tunnels had been choked by the bounty of the Mother which she left behind when she retreated.”

“Flooded mine, huh?” Keris muses. She sips at the water again, tasting that metallic tinge, and roots around for a bit of metallic-sounding debris. “Could be... but what were they mining?” She finds one and pops it into her mouth assessingly.

Oh, Keris knows the taste of this, even if she doesn’t know the name. It’s soft and it’s sort of chalky and Old Calley used to use it in medicine and... and it gets used to make soy beans coagulate. Alabaster! That’s it, Keris realises! What those white statues are made of. The one that’s so soft you can scratch it.

((It’s gypsum, but Keris has no idea what it’s called))  
((... I barely have any idea what it’s- oh, that stuff.))  
((... that was the source of the _metallic_ taste?))  
((No, but there are metal ions in the water from the digging which hollowed out a lot of the hillside))  
((Aaahhh.))

Keris hums thoughtfully, coiling over and around herself in the water. So. An old mine. With some stuff left in it, it looks like. She’s not sure how valuable it is, but she vaguely recalls Calley saying it was good for plants, and alabaster is pretty, so it’s probably worth something if it can be drained. Especially since the land around here isn’t good for growing the crops that make money.

‘Course, it is sort of on someone else’s land. But that’s a problem for the Red Mountain family to deal with. The only question is how far it goes, and whether there’s any way of getting the water out. But Keris is too big to get down most of the passages herself. She needs something smaller. She needs... she really needs a little demon or something. Like that otter-thing from Nexus. That would be very useful right about now.

... though...

Keris tilts her head, considering. This makes two or three times so far that she’s had need of a demon. But she still can’t summon yet - she looked over the spells with Sasi when she was learning sorcery, and... argh argh argh _so complicated_. She has no idea how the older woman can even remember them, the way she does the spell.

But citizens of the City don’t need to summon. They just... _make_ demons whenever they have need of something. And that honestly seems a lot more useful, to Keris. Instead of using someone else’s tools, citizens get to make them for just what they want. But citizens are peers of Malfeas, and so is she, and she’s learned secrets from the Yozis themselves. Why should they have all the fun? Why can’t she do the same thing?

Inspired and intrigued at the prospect, Keris kicks up from the pool and squirms back out, casting around for something to experiment with. A dead monkey catches her eye - lying limp just outside the entrance to the cave, its head almost separated from its body by Echo’s spear. She picks it up thoughtfully and considers.

... well, it’s worth a shot. Just to see if she can do it. And it’s not like clearing out more tunnels will help much. So, slowly and methodically, Keris starts cleaning the flesh and gore off the head, snagging a morsel to taste every so often - mmm, monkey, yum - and washing it in the stream. She doesn’t really have a specific goal in mind; she’s just playing. Once it’s clean, she reattaches the jaw with a thread of hair - and then, amused by the contrast of red hair and white bone, cuts a couple of locks off and winds them through the mouth and eye sockets, piling them inside the skull, knotting and braiding and wrapping until the skull has a little jacket and filling of long scarlet hair.

She looks at it, chewing another lock idly. Okay. So. When citizens make a demon, they... uh... they. Hmm. They...

“... Dulmea, did you ever see your old boss make a serf? How did he make it... you know, be a proper serf, not just a body? Like, how did he breathe life into i- oh.” Keris blinks, interrupting herself before Dulmea can answer. Could it be that simple?

She leans forward, touches her lips to the forehead of the little skull, and whispers a single command to it in Old Realm.

“ _Live_.”

The skull... shudders. Stirs. Twitches. Twists. The hair starts to move, and it twists and squirms in her hands, suddenly feeling warm. The jaw moves, clacking, before letting out a breathy squeak.

Keris blinks. “Wow. That... that actually worked.” The little skull-thing totters sideways and falls off her hands, and she catches it in a hair-cradle that blends with its own. Bringing it up to eye level, she peers at it, and despite the eye sockets being as bare bone as ever, it seems to peer back.

“Hey there, little one,” she says, trying to sound gentle to what is effectively a newborn. “Do you... hmm. Can you talk?” She bounces it up and down lightly, grinning delightedly as it wriggles like a living thing at the motion.

The little thing makes a sound which is somewhere between a mewl, a bark, and an ape’s yammering.  Keris raises a dubious eyebrow. “... is that a no? Okay, probably a no. Can you _understand_ me? Wait, no talking means you can’t answer that. Uh... wave at me if you can?”

The little creature tilts its... uh, skull. And then raises a tendril-limb quizzically. It is not entirely unlike dealing with Echo, Keris considers. Especially Echo when she was younger.

“Good!” she praises it. “Good, uh...” She pauses and discretely checks the monkey’s body, which is probably as good a guess as any. “... boy! Well done!” She cocks her head. “Hmm. Though I guess that means that asking you to check the tunnels is probably kinda pointless, if you can’t tell me anything about them.” She tickles one of the hair-knots under his chin. “Doesn’t matter, though. Learning I can do this? Way better.”

The... thing, whatever he is, she needs to name him at some point... shivers and makes a vaguely purr-like noise at the ticklingly-stroking.

“Dulmea?” she asks. “What do you think I should call... uh...” She bites her lip. “You’re, uh, not going to get all... upset about me being able to do this, are you? Please don’t?”

Dulmea clears her throat. “As a peer, you outrank a citizen,” she says formally. “While I did not... ah, _know_ you could do such things, it is hardly a surprise. After all, a neomah can craft new demons, and you are far more and far mightier than,” she sniffs, “something like _that_.”

“... are you talking about neomah or this little guy?” Keris asks with a hint of a pout. “He’s cute! Like a little... those little crabs that hide in things. Whateverthey’recalleds.” She frowns. “Ah! Hermit crabs, that’s it! Only he’s a monkey skull, not a shell. And hair, not a crab.”

“I was talking about the neomah,” Dulmea says, with another contemptuous sniff. “Base, tasteless things. So indiscreet!”

Keris giggles. “I won’t argue,” she says, well accustomed to Dulmea’s high standards. “But we really need a name for him. Hmm...” She runs through the dialects of the city in her head, sorting through words and sounds. “Mava... mava... hmm. Mavaroska?” She rolls the word around her mouth, considering it. “Mavaroska. I like it! You hear that, little one? You’re a mavaroska.” She grins, quick and happy. “The _first_ mavaroska. Ever.”

The new mavaroska shivers, and rubs himself up and down against her hand. He feels quite a bit warmer than her own hair.

Keris giggles again. “He likes me! Told you.” She glances up and the sky, and... huh, wow. It’s starting to get dark. Come to think of it, she was making the mavaroska for at least a few hours, plus what she spent coming here... she considers, briefly, whether to go back to the town or stay here and make up something about spending the night praying. The lure of curiosity is, in the end, too strong.

“Okay, little one,” she tells the mavaroska. “Hmm. We need a name for you. Not just for what you are, a name for _you_. Hmm... well, since you’re the first, why not Firisutu? Sound good?”

He seems to like the name - or possibly Keris’s hair - and wriggles deeper into it, extending his own hair-tendrils to twine with her own locks.

“Okay, Firisutu. I need to go underwater, so we’re going to see if you can swim. Hold on tight, okay?” She gently sits in a deeper part of the stream and lowers her hair, and Firisutu, into the water.

((... uh, I thought they had a problem with water, but that was the other thing. So how do they feel?))  
((Well, they’re animate skulls with prehensile hair, so breathing certainly isn’t an issue. They probably aren’t terribly happy about getting their hair wet, but they’re also scared of the big wide world unless they have nice safe junk to hide in, so right now Keris’s hair is a bastion of safety in an otherwise scary and threatening world. Uh, also it’s monsooning, so being underwater is honestly not that much wetter than being above it.))

He clings to Keris. Of course, that means Keris has to get banged and scraped again as she squirms back through into the cavern.  She slips into the underground lake, petting him gently to soothe him, and sinks down to the tunnel she unblocked. Finding the area with the leaks, she searches for any holes big enough for the little skull to fit through.

There’s a thump. It comes from the earth itself. It doesn’t sound like rock shifting... but it sounds like rock coiling or twisting. Twisting _inside_ other rock.

Keris freezes. “What was that?” she murmurs warily. “Something alive?” Cautiously, she thumps on the rock in return, before hastily backing away. She can feel Firisutu climbing up her hair to nestle just behind the base of her skull, ensconced in her hair at its thickest.

There’s another sound there. Singing, maybe? From within the rock.

Well. That _is_ interesting. Moving and singing from inside rocks... Keris rather thinks she may have found a spirit of some sort. Maybe a god, maybe a demon... maybe an elemental.

If they like music, though...

She splays her fingers and feels the strands of Time as present underwater as they are anywhere. And Time is thick here; old and grave and weighted down by centuries of stillness and solemn patience. The notes she can pull from this place are grand, arching chords that speak of vaulted ceilings and brooding stone; still water and solidified wisdom. Water carries sound as easily as air - better, and rock carries it better still. And Keris can hear it, hear the echoes; adjust her tune so it won’t be garbled by the transition from water to stone.

She flexes her fingers, and begins to play.

((Per+Exp=3+5+3 Style+1 Style bonus {enthrall an audience}+2 stunt=14. Gwuh? 3? _3?_ 3 fucking successes on 14 dice? WTF, dice fairies? WTF?!))

There’s a noise which reverberates in the deeps. A deep, booming noise. It shakes and it shudders and it’s the noise of the stone and the rock which Keris heard uncurling before, but so much, much more. The rock shakes and the water reverberates and it’s so horribly loud that _everything_ hurts for Keris.

She screams and lashes out, scoring the rock blindly with her Lance as she kicks back towards the exit, crashing twice into the rocks before finding the hole to crawl through. Sobbing, twitching, clutching at her ears, she struggles out and collapses in the small dryish area of the cave, to the side of the stream but beyond the reach of the still-too-loud rain and thunder.

Firisutu clings to her neck with damp locks, either seeking or trying to give comfort. Keris clutches the mavaroska close, but whether it’s intentional or reflex is impossible to tell. Everything hurts, her head _hurts_ , everything is too loud too loud _too loud_ and if she goes outside it’ll be even louder and worse.

Keris curls up in a ball, wraps her hair around herself, and prays for the cacophony of the world to stop.

It doesn’t stop. Above her, Keris sees the hillside sag and split open. From the faultline emerges a head, the head of a great centipede. It pauses there, its tendrils twitching, and slowly with a sound like a landslide retreats back into the rock, leaving a new crevasse rent into the hill. Keris swallows. That... that must have been the size of a street of Nexan houses!

She listens to the rumbling as it retreats back into the rock, following its progress through the hill, ready to run like hell if it sounds like it’s coming out again.  But no, it’s receding. For now.


	6. Chapter 6

Keris lies curled up on the cold floor of the cave, the tiny mavaroska clinging to the back of her neck. She’s dead still as the centipede-thing rumbles back into the rock; unbreathing and unmoving, every muscle tense. The shivering of the little deva is the only movement in the cave beyond the slight tremors of the stone itself.

Eventually, when the last after-echoes have faded, she uncoils. Slightly.

“What,” she hisses under her breath, “was that. It was... was it guarding the mine, or... or hoarding stuff in there? It was like the snake! But even bigger and louder! Is this place worth _that much?_ ”

There is some of the gypsum rock here. Some, but not much. There’s also something which which tastes both golden and shiny and pretty, but just tastes like iron. In fact, the entire cave tastes... loose. Unsorted. Keris... Keris thinks this hill is not a natural formation. It’s like someone dumped it here.

She frowns. If it was dumped here... that means it came from somewhere. But where? “Dulmea?” she asks. “What... what was that thing? It was huge. And really, really loud.”

Dulmea is quiet. “Child,” she reminds Keris, “I know little of the creatures of Creation. Perhaps it was some local thing similar to a demon? Some god or elemental that has claimed this hillside?”

“An elemental...” Keris nods. “I guess. I never saw one up close. And definitely none that... _huge_.” She pokes at the rock with a toe, scowling. “Or _loud_. Or _hurty_. I should go back an’ stab it in the ears, let it know what it feels like.” She pauses. “... _and_ stab it. Sorry.”

Dulmea conveys a certain air of maternal disapproval, and not just at Keris’ falling back into street slang. “Perhaps you already did so,” she points out. “You were making noise, stabbing the rock - and it is a creature of rock.”

“... oh.” Keris blushes. “Whoops. Hmm. Well, question is, where’s the city? Because this stuff came from a mine. But it’s... it’s chalky-rock and that weird fake gold stuff and rubble. Nothing valuable. And the hill’s all loose and useless... I think this got dumped out of a mine they were getting something else from. This is just the... the trash.” She looks around at the cave and whistles faintly. “A whole _hill_ of trash. Which means... where’d it _come_ from?”

Dulmea hums to herself. “Perhaps, child,” she considers, “well. The ruins of the building by the hill - or perhaps the mound. Perhaps it is part of the reason it was here. And... hmm... that lake by the town was very circular, was it not?” she finishes slowly after a pause for thought.

“Yeah,” Keris nods. “It was weird, really- oh. You think?”

“I would not consider it impossible,” Dulmea says. “There are great pits in the City where people will dig out minerals from the King. Then the Ocean will ofttimes flood them.”

Keris pauses thoughtfully. “... that would be a sight and a half,” she considers. “I should try and see that someday. I bet it would look amazing.” She ponders it for a moment before snapping out of it and starting towards the cave entrance. “No, not the time. Okay, I’ll go check out the lake, and... huh.”

She pauses as a thought strikes her. “Hey, do you think big-centipede-thing is... I mean, is it like an animal, or like Echo and Rathan, or like you and me? If it’s that big, it’s probably really old. Might have been around here since the city was still here.” She chews a hair-tendril thoughtfully and wrinkles her nose. “But it’s probably not happy with me if I stabbed it, and I’m not fond of it, either. I’ll leave it alone for now.”

Suiting deed to word, she heads down towards the down, ignoring the swath of felled bamboo near the cave entrance. It’ll grow back in a few days, as though she’d never cut it in the first place, and she’s not too concerned with anyone finding the cave in the first place. She takes to the tops of the shoots once more, dancing light-footed over the impassable thicket as she makes for the settlement.

The sun is setting, bloody and red in the West as it sinks below the hills. Keris can hear the sound of families gathering in the homes. The Tengese tend to eat in large family groups, she’s noticed - extended families all getting together and eating from a single table.

It’s a helpful habit, as it means that there are very few people outside to watch as she slips through the farms that the bamboo has been cut back from, circling around a beached fishing boat before sliding into the lake. It’s shallow at the edges, choked with plant life, but Keris lets the water guide her around matted clumps of water chestnut and nets of grass as she looks for anything deeper.

Deeper is the right word. This lake is deep. Really, really, really deep. Deeper than the ocean off the coast of An Teng.

Keris allows herself the indulgence of a flip, shooting out of the water and arcing a body-length and a half into the air; a brief scarlet flicker in the gathering dusk that falls back down and plunges into the water with barely a ripple, her ears tracking echoes and sounds through the water to build a map of the lakebed.

This lake is not a natural formation. Keris is sure of it. They dug it out. The centre of the lake simply drops off, in a nearly vertical fall which goes down four, six, eight hundred metres. The low bit is maybe fifty metres wide, but... no wonder they made a hillock here. There used to be a barrier perhaps twenty metres from the top, but it’s broken. Its debris litters the bottom, along with hundreds of years of sediment.

And the bottom isn’t the bottom. Oh, it’s a bottom. A bottom which is tens of metres thick. But when she swims deep, deep, deep down - so deep there’s no light at all and puts her ear against the bottom, she can hear the things in the white stone at the bottom, below the thick sediment. The hissing things in metal cylinders. The sound of water boiling. The clattering and clanking.

A slow grin of pure, genuine delight spreads across Keris’s face. “I love new things,” she whispers happily. “And they were fishing on top of it without even knowing. Heh. Okay, Sasi needs to know about this. And... hmm. It might be like Tear.” She treads water for a moment, reluctantly decides that her Cherub Shrine probably won’t work very well if it’s full of water, and surfaces again. A few minutes running at full speed takes her a fair way into the bamboo, and a quick slash clears an area large enough for her to pull the Shrine out.

She glances at the sky assessingly - it’s evening, Sasi will probably be getting back home and checking with Boromono for any messages soon. So then. She clears her throat as the electric blue sparkling aura builds around the Shrine, and begins to speak as soon as the cherub appears.

“Sasi. Found something on the old Shogunate maps - a city that isn’t there anymore. Went looking for it. Found an old mine that’s flooded and turned into a lake. There’s something down at the bottom. Metres of stone, but something under them - something _working_. Machinery, hissing, clanking, moving metal. Contact me when you get this - I’ll spend the rest of the night looking for a way in, so you won’t be interrupting.” She pauses, and the cherub gives the double-flutter that signifies it’s memorised the message. “Go to the demon Boromono, in An Teng,” she orders it, and it flashes away so fast that she doesn’t even hear it leave.

“Right then,” she sighs. “Tear had a doorway inside. Let’s see if this place does.”

There are hundreds of years of silt blocking Keris way down to the bottom. Despite that, though, she can hear through it, and... it sounds _very_ solid. Under the silt is the same white stone the Shogunate made those really long-lasting buildings out of. And that sounds like... like they literally just blocked off the entire shaft with this stone. She can swim through a lot of things, but she doesn’t think she can swim through solid rock. And when she listens very closely, she thinks she can hear wards against immaterial things down there.

Someone really didn’t want people getting down there, she concludes.

She huffs in annoyance and moves to the walls. If she can’t go _through_ , maybe she can go around? Which might also help with the slight problem of how to stop the water following her, which isn’t an issue at the moment but will probably become one as soon as she finds a hole she can squirm through.

The rock here sounds a lot less solid than the plug, yes. There’s glassy things in the rock around the lower bit, but it’s certainly less tough than the white stone plug. It won’t be a fast thing, though. There’s all the sediment and even then, there certainly aren’t any convenient ways down.

Keris circles uncertainly, debating whether or not to start before Sasi responds. She can, she decides, at least try and clear the sediment away and get a look at the plug, and starts on sweeping as much of the mud and detritus aside as she can, piling the thick silt up in mounds as she digs down.

((How much effort is she going to put into it? Will she risk anima flare? A rousing game of carve a tunnel with Echo might help))  
((Ooo! I’m a pretty fucking long way down, so I’ll at least risk “torchlight” flare, and possibly “bonfire”. Lol eerie red glow deep down in the lake in the middle of the night.))

It is, needless to say, a harder prospect than it sounds. It gets a little easier when Keris gives up on digging with her arms in disgust and uses her head. Calling on Echo for aid, she starts swimming. And turning. And pours on the speed. Soon she’s flashing around in as small a circle as she can manage - which is still at least ten yards across - so fast that the water is rushing to follow her.

Echo trails her, carving deep furrows in the mud that the churning water deepens; sucking up silt and spitting it out of the vortex. The water is lit red with the light of Keris’s soul, and grows chill and cold and bitter, but it’s working - the whirlpool is cutting down through the centuries-old layers of mud and silt, baring what’s beneath them.

The water is thick with layer upon layer of silt, and Keris can taste it. It’s like a taste map of history. She can taste the changes in the humans that must have been living upstream as she gets deeper and deeper. There’s a layer of bamboo down here, rotten and decayed - maybe from a great storm. Down and down she goes, surrounded by sediment. She’s glowing, but she can barely see her own hands because of all the dirt she’s kicking up.

And then a thin layer which just tastes of pure _wood_.

And then death. So much death. Rot and death is all around her, bitter and vile in the sediment she’s kicked up.

She shrieks, and instantly realises what a bad idea that is when it opens her mouth to more of the water. Clapping both hands over her mouth, she swears, spits and clamps her nose closed and her eyes screwed shut. She doesn’t falter in the whirling vortex she’s driving - but only barely, and she can still _taste_ it eww eww eww _urgh_. She bites her tongue, hard - _harder_ \- hard enough to break skin, to make it bleed. The salty tang of blood is a blessing in comparison, and she sucks at the wound regardless of pain, seeking to wash the awful taste out of her sense-memory.

“So much death,” Dulmea breathes. She sounds ill. “What is that?”

‘I think...’ Keris coughs out between concentrating on tightening up her circle again and gulping down blood, ‘... I think... that was the Contagion.’

“So... so,” Dulmea says, gagging, “uh... this must be older than that, yes? Echo... Echo has found something.”

Echo floats in front of Keris in the water, her little face screwed up in disgust. She’s pointing at the bottom, though - there’s white stone there, and the rubble from the fallen first layer of plug. The first plug level must have been destroyed around that time.

Keris pauses in her swimming to investigate - which is a little tricky, as the vortex doesn’t stop when she does, but she manages to swim into the middle where the outward pull isn’t as strong. Wrapping her hair around the exposed rocks and rubble, Keris pulls herself down to investigate what’s been bared.

The white stone is heavily scratched and dented, and... and there’s the remains of skeletons there, their bones stained grey-brown by the crushing weight of the sediment. There’s writing carved into the stone, though, although Keris can only pick out a little bit between the damage and the silt - she’s now at the bottom of a rather precipitous ravine she dug down. It’s not in a language she’s familiar with... well, not quite. It’s similar-ish to Old Realm. Ish.

She squints, not willing to taste the stuff - or even take her hands away from her mouth - to get a better look. Tracing the shapes with her hair helps distinguish the battered carvings, though, and her anima-light makes it more than bright enough to see.

“This not place belonging to... honour?” Keris tries, before giving up. No, she can’t read it.  “Dulmea?” she asks. “Any idea what this means? Wait, hang on. Don’t bother with what it means, just copy it down. I can show it to Sasi later. Can you see it okay?”

“Barely,” Dulmea says warily. “More light?”

Keris focuses, and the whirlpool of water is joined by one of ethereal wind; a crimson-scarlet cyclone full of flitting silver knife-fish. Echo appears delighted at this development, and starts chasing them around, apparently unconcerned by the way they evaporate at her touch.

“I wonder what this place is,” Dulmea says, after a while. “I do not feel safe here.”

“I guess... the place under here was Shogunate, like the sewers and the other stuff made of the white stone,” Keris muses. “Then the Contagion came... uh... I _really_ don’t remember much about what Calley said about it, but I think... the Shogunate was a big... empire, like the Realm, and then the Contagion and something else happened, and I dunno what the other thing was but the Contagion made everyone die. Like the plagues in Nexus, but worse. Way worse. Way, way, way worse. _Everything_ died. Uh, only not everything did, obviously, because not everything is dead.”

She brushes away some more of the rubble to let Dulmea copy the writing under it. “I guess the Shogunate turned into the Realm somehow, and... yeah, now it’s now. This must’ve been sealed off just before the Contagion. Or during, even. Maybe they tried to hole up in here and hide from it. Or bury it so nothing could get in.”

“I see,” Dulmea says dubiously. “Now, child, please, can we leave this sediment. I do not want it to fall down on us.” Keris nods and pushes off, circling back up to safer heights as the vortex slowly spins to a stop and the mud starts glooping back over the white stone.

Dulmea breathes a long sigh of relief. Echo pouts, and retreats back into Keris’ hair. She seemed to enjoy the “run around very fast spinning” game.

“Sorry in advance if she decides to start doing that in there,” Keris notes cheekily. “Now, hmm. How long till Sasi replies, do you think?”

“Do you know what time it is, child?” Dulmea asks. “Presumably, she will do it before she goes to sleep for the night, so that the flaring of her soul is not seen.”

“... she has three levels of underground basement with no windows,” Keris points out. “Who’s gonna see? But yeah, good point.” She heads up to the surface, breaking water with a lily pad covering her head and glancing up at the sky. The sun has set and it’s dark. The moon hasn’t risen yet, and Keris is still glowing, so she swiftly makes her way away from the village.

She’s also sort of really hungry.

A troop of lemurs start hooting nearby, and her eyebrow twitches slightly. Well, maybe her two problems can solve one another. Shaking her hair mostly-dry, she waits for Firisutu - who seems to have acquired several bits of bamboo, a few largeish leaves, some wet bits of rubble and a water lily-pad that he’s holding around himself in a sort of cocoon - to settle in her hair again, drops Ascending Air into her hands with a flick of her wrists, and goes hunting.

Lemur, as it turns out, tastes delicious.

Firisutu is soon wearing a lemur-tail... uh, let’s just go for ‘hat’ with how he’s wearing it.

“What are you doing with that lot?” Keris asks in fond curiosity as she munches on a leg and watches the little ball of hair juggle his various accessories and search the nearby area for any other potential adornments. He busies itself attempting to lever a longish pebble out of the ground, and she hooks it out for him with the tip of a kris.

The little creature purr-chatters, and places the rock carefully and deliberately next to a tree. It’s swiftly joined by twigs, some unripe fruit, and a lemur femur. Keris watches with fascination and amusement as he builds an oddly... compelling structure.

There’s a thrumming hum, like a finger on a wineglass, and a movement of wind like something suddenly slowing down. There’s a little creature in front of Keris now - a little fox-like animal made of blue glass with very large ears. It sits upright attentively, cocking its head as it takes Keris in.

Keris blinks. “Uh. Hello? I’m Keris,” she tries. “Do you have a message for me?”

“Keris,” the fox begins, in Sasi’s voice. “How are you? I’m missing you, my dear. The weather is disgustingly hot and sticky right now - the winds from the west are cloudless and they’re moving in off the coast. It’s night, and it’s still too hot.

“But enough talk. What you’ve found... that’s interesting. Very interesting indeed. I’ve thought about any such places I might know of in the area, and I’m coming up blank. I do know An Teng was a large exporter of various minerals back in the Shogunate, but I’ve always heard that they came from the High Lands, not the Middle Lands.

“Be careful with whatever it is. Ruins from the First Age are oft-times dangerous and have many guardians - or later things which have moved in. I know you won’t listen to me when I tell you not to take risks, but please, dear, don’t take too many risks. And don’t let anyone else know of your discoveries. I have heard rumours that the Nellens magistrate is interested in the Shogunate - and earlier - history of An Teng as a hobby, and though we are far from the Scavenger Lands scavenger lords show up in many places.

“I love you, so stay safe.”

Keris allows herself a few moments of glowing happily as she considers her response. Sasi will probably wait up long enough for a reply, even if she’s unlikely to send a second one back, but she’ll probably be interested to know what and where Keris is. She begins charging the Cherub Shrine again, and starts with a smile.

“I’ll be as careful as I can, I promise. I, uh, sort of had a run-in with a really, really big elemental, but I’m fine and I left it mostly alone, so you don’t need to worry.

“The map said this place was called the Catalyst of the Red Sunrise - you might be able to look up something about it. It’s in a Grey Owl barony now, I think - a bit north of the Red Mountain lands. The mineshaft is plugged with a big block of that white stone the Shogunate used, and the silt just over it tasted of death. It probably got laid down just before the Contagion, or during. I copied some writing off the top, but I can’t read it. I’ll show you later.

“I love you too, Sasi.” Keris ducks her head shyly as she says it, and can’t quite fight down a blush. “I’ll hang around till the Red Mountain family have started sorting out worship days for the Sower, then head back to you.” She grins. “We can have a celebration when I arrive. I’ll try to bring you something pretty.”

She smiles fondly as she gestures for the cherub to go, and stretches. “Okay then. Can’t do much more about getting around that plug without some idea of what’s under it, and I’m not exactly keen on tasting that stuff again.” She chews her lip thoughtfully. “But that’s twice now that silt’s gotten in the way. I think I need a better way of clearing it.” She glances at Firisutu, who is carefully tearing a leaf up into strips and tying them around twigs at apparently-random intervals. “And I think I have an idea of what to use to do it.”

Sasi’s next message arrives about twenty minutes later, as another glass fox comes bounding up. “I’ve never heard of a place by that name,” Sasi says. She sounds more hurried. “Be very careful. I know the names of a lot of the Shogunate-era towns around the area, and it’s not on any of my maps.

“I’m pleased to hear that you’re doing well. I was worried about you, but you seem to have this in hand. Remember not to push them too hard, but make sure they’re grateful to you. The Sower should appreciate this, and help get you off the hook.

“If you’re going to reply, please do it in the next hour. I’m tired and will be going to bed soon.”

Keris nods, and pats her Cherub Shrine fondly. “I’ll try to clear away the silt, but I won’t try to breach it until I’ve come back and talked it over with you in person,” she promises. “They seem happy with the gold, and Joyous Raven offered to set up the prayers as part of the local cycle on her own. Uh...”

She debates telling Sasi about her newfound skill, eyes Firisutu - who is rebraiding his lemur-tail hat - and decides it’s probably the sort of thing best done in person. “... you go to bed and get some rest. I know how you like your sleep. Don’t miss me too much for not being there! Love you!”

That done, Keris heads back to the lake and slides in, descending at a leisurely pace this time; no longer so driven by curiosity or business. She sinks down slowly until she reaches the silt and burrows into the uppermost layer; careful to stay away from the deepest reaches where that awful taste of death and rot lurks. She can still sense the lingering remnants of what she dug up, even diluted in this much water.

“Silt... silt silt silt,” she muses. “How do I get rid of silt? I want something that clears it away... something that eats it, gets rid of it.” She hums to herself. “And if I’m making it for the sewers, something that made the water fresh like that broken wheel is meant to would be good, too. So... a silt-eater that makes water fresh. Let’s see...”

She picks up a double handful of mud, letting it ooze slowly through her fingers. “That centipede thing was made of rock. Hmm. Maybe if I... hmm. A sort of fishy thing, maybe? Made of silt that’s packed down really tight inside, so it can eat loads without growing too fast? And the water thing... tch. Dulmea? Echo? Any ideas?”

Dulmea clears her throat after a while. “I think Echo wishes to show you something,” she says wearily. Keris obligingly sinks into meditation, opening her inner eyes and cocking her head at the little wind-waif expectantly.

Echo is beaming widely, like a proud child, balancing on a wall with her hands on her hips. One of her gaggle of not-her wind little girls is holding up something for Keris to inspect. It looks like... it looks like a sliver of ice cut off a building, wrapped tightly in some of the vines cut off the buildings so it looks like something corded.

Keris eyes the little girls somewhat suspiciously - she’s starting to suspect Echo may have beaten her too it in the whole “making serfs” thing - and takes it gently, turning it this way and that to examine it.

“Is this... a way to clear the silt?” she asks, puzzled. “Or make the water fresh?”

Echo gives an exasperated sigh, and shakes her head sadly. She makes a poking gesture with her long fingers. She seems to be suggesting that Keris should... should push the ice out? Keris carefully pushes it, holding it a little away from her with her hair just in case. It’s a bit sticky, but the ice has melted a bit and that means it slides mostly out, leaving Keris a hollow tube of branches which feels about to spring apart if she lets go of it.

Echo waves her hands around, in an excited ‘taa-daa’ gesture.

((... she is adorable.))

Keris looks at Dulmea in quiet confusion, hoping for some help.  Unfortunately, Dulmea also seems confused. “I... I think she made you a tube?” she hazards.

“A tube that... ice comes out of,” Keris agrees. “So... ice is in the middle... and then comes out?” She looks hopefully at Echo. “Yes?”

Echo glares at Dulmea. She puts her hands in front of her face, and pretends to be a small fluffy animal. Then she does a complicated gesture which seems to convey ‘then you catch the small fluffy animal and cut all its skin off and cover the tube in the skin so the water doesn’t come out except at the ends’.

It’s a remarkably evocative gesture.

“Oooooh. I find a skin of something and pack it full of silt, right?” Keris nods as light dawns. “And that can help hold the silt together... and it sucks in water at one end and pushes pure water out the other end. Oh, that would even let it move!”

Echo beams, and flicks her hair around her, a smug grin on her face. She crosses her arms, and sticks her tongue out at Dulmea.

Keris is entirely willing to accept some raw, scraped skin to give her a well-deserved cuddle, and opens her eyes at the bottom of the lake again. She rockets up towards the surface, and grabs the first fishy-looking thing she sees. It is not, as it turns out, a cute fluffy thing, but rather a very surprised eel, whose head she sort of accidentally cuts off a little bit.

Oh well. She was going to open up both ends anyway. She heads back down into the depths, carefully peeling the skin off and passing the flesh into her Domain (there’s no sense in wasting perfectly good eel meat, after all).

Taking another couple of handfuls of silt, she spits into it, working her saliva into the mud, and begins packing the skin full of mud. The tail gets four carefully opened slits for water to get out through, and she squeezes and compacts the silt she’s working into it as much as possible. After some thought, she drains the eel’s blood out of its flesh and adds that to the mix as well, to better stick the mass together. Then she begins the long, laborious process of painting an intricate web of tattoos over the skin in brightly-coloured dyes, working from instinct to get the pattern and poisons right. She’s not trying to _create_ harmful toxins, she’s trying to make something that will _absorb_ them; drink them out of the lake and leave pure water in their absence.

Once she’s more or less finished, she examines her - slimy, cold - creation with a critical eye, nods in vague approval and kisses it on the skin just above the open maw where its head had once sat.

“ _Live,_ ” she whispers in Old Realm, and _hears_ it come alive.

The eel-skin _twists_ and turns itself inside out, being sucked _through_ the mouth, out the back, and then back over the skin. It’s changed with its passage. It’s now icy-cold, with a distinct blue-green colouring which shines almost like copper. There are four milky white eyes which weren’t there before, too - arranged on each quadrant around its mouth.

There is something of a thrill to creating life. Especially life that’s brilliantly designed. And this time she had time to plan ahead and think of what to call it!

“Iszangol,” she names the silt-scavenger. “Can you talk, I wonder? Or understand what I say?”

It squirms free of her hands, sculling through the water. “Understand,” it says slowly. “Yes. Understand. Can I talk?” It speaks in a laboured Nexan accent. “It seems I can. But maybe I cannot. I think this is talking.”

“... that’s talking, yes,” Keris says. “Excellent. Can you handle...” she waves vaguely at the layers of silt below her. “Clearing up some of this? Uh - be careful, the stuff at the bottom is horrible. Don’t eat that bit if it hurts you.”

The creature sighs, although maybe it’s the noise of the water passing through it. “Quite a feast,” it says.

“If you have a way to make more of yourself, feel free,” Keris tells it. “Just, uh, not so many that the people up top see you, okay?”

“Yes,” it says. “More than enough to eat.”

“Great!” Keris chirps. “In that case, I’m going to leave you to it. I’ll be back, but maybe not for a while.” She strokes it gently. It’s cold and slippery to the touch, and she can already taste the pure freshwater seeping out from its tail-slits. “Stay safe, okay?”


	7. Chapter 7

Leaving her newest creation with a kiss and a whispered affection, Keris heads back to Red Mountain territory. It’s late - past midnight, if she’s any judge - but she can probably explain it away as having lost track of time praying.

((What’s the date?))  
((Night of the 24th-25th Crowning Wood))  
((Technically the 25th now, since it’s after midnight))

The moon is a tiny waning crescent on the horizon, rising to the east. It’s still sweltering hot, and there are insects everywhere, buzzing in the night. It’s pitch black out in the countryside, and Keris can barely pick out the patches of light which mark isolated settlements. She pauses to catch some fish in a river nearly choked by reeds, and hears the rustle and thrust of the alligators in the swampy water.

“It’s amazing,” she comments to Dulmea, holding the strands of hair that Firisutu is clinging to out of the water as she skims along through the water. The mavaroska is starting to retreat into the bundle of things he’s holding; hiding the majority of the hair-bundle that makes up its body inside the shell of a baby turtle with the skull peeking out the top. “How they come alive. Go from nothing to... to little people.”

Dulmea sniffs. “You humans make little humans inside the flesh-alchemy vats inside you,” she says. “Making something from detritus is normal compared to that.”

“...” says Keris. “Uh. Flesh... alchemy... vats? You mean when we’re pregnant?” She giggles. “That’s a really weird way of putting it. I should tell Sasi, see what she thinks of it. But that’s not the same at all, that’s just... sort of...” She searches for words. “... you know, normal stuff. For people. And babies. And baby people.”

“Keris, child, you have a flesh-alchemy vat within you which takes male seed, combines it with your own essence, and grows a tiny human within you. That is not natural,” Dulmea says firmly. “And while you... no, stop that! You dratted thing, put that down!” There is a noise which sounds a lot like hair lashing out, and the sound of giggles. “Apologies, child, but I will have to talk to you about this later. One of Echo’s little creations has managed to sneak in and it’s stolen a set of pipes. I will need to track the blasted thing down.”

“Wait, what? Echo’s...” Keris stops - or at least stops actively swimming, letting the current and her momentum continue to carry her forward - and closes her eyes, focusing her senses inward and blinking in surprise at what they show her. “... creations?”

“Those blasted wind-ribbon-light children she makes who steal things. And who cause wind-storms by dancing around my musicians,” Dulmea grumbles.

“... they’re... full things? Like Firisutu, like the iszangol? Proper serfs, not just puppets?” Keris isn’t sure how to feel about that.

Wait, yes she is. She pouts in annoyance. “That means she _beat_ me! How’d she work it out before I did?”

“I do not know, child,” Dulmea says, her voice taught with irritation. “But... oh! Oh no you don’t! Get down from there! Echo! Get here this moment, young lady! Control your serfs!”

Keris can _feel_ Echo’s smugness at the back of her mind, and sends a mental flicker of irritation at her; ‘Behave’.

She gets a lot more smugness back, and the impression of someone sticking their tongue out.

Blocking the connection out and scowling, Keris returns her attention to her journey. With, perhaps, a muttered commentary trailing her as she darts along the river through the night.

“... overly smug little jumped-up swaggering snobby little sisters who think they know it all just ‘cause they have all day to play around while some of us do actual work and...”

Compared to the place where she’s been, even White Bridge Rising Over Water looks big. It’s around two in the morning, and the place is basically dead quiet. Even the inns are shut.

This can’t be natural, thinks the Nexan who also lives in Malfeas.

“Did everyone die or something?” she mutters, donning her priestly disguise and adding a few touches of tiredness to her expression, along with mud and grass stains on her robe as though she’s been sitting for extended periods. “Or did something scary turn up and everyone ran away?”

But no, she can hear people in the buildings. They’re just... all asleep. And almost nobody is awake. Or hawking stuff on the streets. Or arguing. Or working night shifts.

It’s _freaky_.

Even the castle is asleep. It’s apparently too late for anyone to be awake, but too early for the servants to be up who start baking the bread and so on.

((... ... ...))  
((Cog+Dulmea=6. 1 sux.))

Keris rolls her eyes at their laziness, slips in through a window and makes it almost halfway to her room before a gentle cough stops her.

“Child,” observes Dulmea. “The monk you are pretending to be would have no ability to enter the castle in such a way. What will they think if they find you here when they do not remember letting you in?”

“...” responds Keris intelligently. “Uh. Well. Basically...”

She stands in the hallway for a few seconds, considering this. Then, with a weary sigh, she grudgingly turns around and breaks back out again.

“Okay, that is a really good point,” she admits as she plonks herself down cross-legged in front of the castle gates, “but it’s a really good point that means I have to sit on a stone floor and meditate until the sun comes up, so I’m not saying thank-you. Hang on, I’m coming in.”

Keris opens her eyes again in Dulmea’s townhouse. Since she was last here, there’s apparently been a redecoration. Now a dome of transparent ice tops off this level, exposing the strange heavens within Keris’ soul.

What they show at the moment is that it is cloudy. Sullen red clouds hang overhead. And it’s raining. Very, very heavily.

“Welcome, child,” Dulmea says. Despite the chaos Keris heard earlier, Dulmea apparently has everything back in order. She’s serving the tea right now, and Keris relaxes as the familiar sounds of harp music fill the room.

She sighs happily, immediately picking the tune up herself, and takes a teacup in careful hair-tendrils. “I’m glad to be here,” she smiles. “Though the weather was nicer outside.”

Dulmea smiles faintly. “I am afraid Rathan is being troublesome,” she says. “Much as Echo is an ill-disciplined child, her offenses are rather lesser than his actions in... well, if you would just go to the covered balcony, you would see that he is pouring corrosive rain down over entire swathes of the city.” She shakes her head and sighs. “It is like I am in the City again,” she says, “though of course it helps that I am safe within here.”

Keris frowns. “ _Why_ is he pouring corrosive rain down on my soul-city? Should I go up there and tell him to stop? And... wait.” She looks around warily. “Where, uh. Where _is_ Echo? You said she was causing trouble earlier.”

Dulmea sighs. “Echo is just a minor irritation. She steals things, she kills things when she’s bored, and she’s started making these... wind-children whenever she dances. Which is often. As for Rathan... I do not know why he is distressed. Maybe he feels neglected and wants your attention. Perhaps he is jealous of the fact that Echo has been playing with you. Perhaps he is just a brat.”

Keris is a little insulted at this last theory, but is also aware that she hasn’t been the one stuck in here with him for the past several days. She sips her tea and projects careful neutrality through her chords.

“Well... I’m not sure how much time I’ll have here before someone wakes up and finds me, so I suppose I should head up now and see to him,” she decides. “Not that it’s not nice spending time with you.”

“That would be nice,” Dulmea says tersely. “Be wary of the rain, and you will need to get up to him.”

Keris nods, rises and heads out at a run. It’s a quick dash through the rain to the edge of the lake that the Dome overlooks, and she dives into its waters. Which are, uh. Still a bit caustic. But less so.

Grumbling under her breath, she makes for the taste of ice-blood in the water where the wound in the heart-moon leaks down into the lake in a steady stream. Swimming up a vertical waterfall is far from easy, but it’s quicker and more convenient than any of the other ways in she can think of, and it lets her get to Rathan himself the fastest.

An unusual trace of self-awareness makes Keris think to herself about how she’s not really sure where her life went so... uh. Strange. A year ago, she would never have thought she’d be swimming up a vertical waterfall to try to comfort her son. Who is not a sun, but instead a moon.

... when was her one-year Exaltation anniversary? She should have had a party. Wait, or is it still to come? If it is, she can have a party! With Sasi! And she needs to find out when Sasi’s is, so she can have a party then too!

And then she breaks the cloud layer, and emerges up into the night’s sky. A giant bright red mandela surrounds Rathan, taking up most of the sky short of the fog wall, and Keris realises the clouds weren’t red - that was his light coming through.

He’s also wailing. Loudly. Very, very loudly.

Wincing and stuffing her hair in her ears, she climbs the last leg as fast as she can and slips through the jagged rent in the ice-shell of the moon to the crimson liquid within.

This makes the wailing, if anything, even louder. She groans in discomfort and arrows forward through the water, making for the centre and the ox-sized foetus floating there.

“Rathan! Rathan, hush, you’re...” Keris flinches. She can barely hear herself think, let alone speak. “ _Rathan!_ ” she tries again, louder, laying a hand on his forehead. “ _Too loud! Hush, please!_ ”

((Presence + Persuasion. Does Keris have any childcare Styles? : D ))  
((... does Spirit-Charming Supplicant count? : P))  
((... no, I don’t think so))  
((Aww. But she knows his name and title within the Hierarchy of Keris! : P))

He screams and thrashes, in the midst of a full-scale tantrum. This is a _really emphatic_ cry; there’s wailing and sobbing and glubbing and waving of limbs. Keris is reluctantly impressed. She’s never seen a full-scale meltdown quite as dramatic, and she’s seen some really well-faked ones.

The fact that it appears to be entirely genuine is only the icing on the cake of the performance.

So. Children. Babies, really. Keris runs through a quick mental checklist of what babies need to stop crying; a process that takes about three seconds and barely amounts to one and a half points of useful information. Sometimes they want food, but she can’t nurse and isn’t sure how she would do so anyway for a baby the size of an ox. That just leaves cuddling, which the women she’s seen with babies seem to do a lot of.

Moving forward with a calming, soothing touch ready to gently reassure her son, Keris is immediately clocked in the eye by a flailing elbow and knocked backwards end-over-end in a full head-over-heels flip. Swearing quietly under her breath, she moves in again, _ducks_ the elbow, narrowly avoids a jerking foot and pounces, wrapping Rathan up in hair and arms and holding him tight.

“Ssshhhh,” she whispers in the rough proximity to his ear. “Sssshhh, it’s okay, I’m here. Come on, stop crying. Hush now, you’re hurting mummy’s ears, be good...”

((3+5+2 stunt+3 Kimmy ExSux {endlessly giving, self-defined victim, martyring herself}=10. 6+3=9 sux.))

Rathan’s wailing gets much less violent as soon as Keris has skin to... uh, skin-and-stone-and-pearl-and... skin-to-skin contact. It seems as soon as he’s being touched by her, he stops thrashing around and stops crying so violently. He’s also.. shrinking as she clings onto him, until he’s about the size of a four year old. His patchwork head goes to the front of her dress and nestles there, and while he’s sort of still burbling, he’s doing it much more gently.

... he’s not exactly light. In fact , he’s very heavy. But as soon as Keris tries to let go, he starts up again.

“Okay, okay, there there...” Keris strokes his head gently until he calms again. “Huh. You’re not as talkative as your big sister, are you? I guess I’ll have to learn to understand you on your own. Do you understand me, or are you still too little for words and talking?” She bounces him experimentally a couple of times without breaking contact and tickles him under his chin.

The oversized baby doesn’t really seem to be listening. He’s just clinging onto her and nuzzling her. He seems to like being tickled, though, because he giggles, and when he’s bounced he sort of bounces up and down on her on his own.

Keris sighs. “So you’re happy while I’m paying attention to you, but I’m guessing you won’t be when I leave. You’ll start crying again, won’t you?” She sighs and thinks. “I need to... urgh. Make another serf, I suppose. Something for you to play with while I’m out doing things.”

She wrinkles her nose and sighs. “Yeah. A mother-cuddling-toy-playmate sort of thing. Which... I don’t think I have time to create right now. Well, maybe if I give you as much attention as I can now, you won’t cry so much later. Come on, let’s explore.”

She bounces him up and down a few more times, then spins him around so he has his back to her and kicks out powerfully, sending them spinning across the interior of the moon. “Look at that! What’s _this_ way?” she whispers to him, pointing out ice-patterns on the inside of the shell and swerving through tunnels...

... wait, no. Not tunnels. Huh. The moon really is in the shape of a heart, she realises. There’s a structure to the inside, and though she’s not really sure what the inside of a normal heart looks like, she’s pretty sure these tubes and chambers are probably it.

Rathan giggles as he’s carried around, running around and being bounced from place to place. He doesn’t seem at all like the distressed wailing ball of ear-hurtyness he was a few minutes ago - now he’s a happy baby who just happens to be big and... you know, not human.

Maybe she should see if he wants to play with any of the other inhabitants of this place. Maybe that’ll keep him happy when she has other things to do.

“Rathan? Can I take you out of your moon? We can go and see Dulmea, I bet she’d be happy to cuddle you.”

Keris is not, in fact, sure of this. But she swims down to the rent in the heart-moon anyway and - warily, just in case the thing collapses once Rathan is outside it - slips into the stream of brine-blood flowing out of it and down into the lake below, cradling Rathan close.

Rathan seems to be enjoying his journey a lot, and he shrieks with joy as Keris descends from the waterfall. The clouds have cleared up, and Keris and Rathan can see everything about her domain, from fog-wall to fog-wall.

Breathing a minor sigh of relief, Keris lands feet-first and running on the surface of the lake and takes Rathan on a quick tour of the Domain, talking to him all the while and pointing things out to him. She even points his little hands at some of the buildings, and he seems to like that, pointing excitedly (if somewhat randomly) at things he can see, whose relevance is only apparent to the mind of an infant.

... Keris actually feels sort of guilty for leaving him in his moon. Sure, he went up there to start with, and had seemed fairly happy, but maybe part of the reason that Echo had gotten so smart was that Keris had been talking to her so much? She promises herself that she won’t continue that mistake, and heads for the Dome.

“So...” she announces herself, slipping into Dulmea’s room and staying out of sight. “I have good news, and I have... also kind of good news but which you might not be so happy about maybe.”

“It has stopped raining and the clouds have parted, so I presume that is the good news,” Dulmea says. She’s brushing her hair in front of a mirror, using other strands of hair to do it. It’s a peculiar sight, and she’s playing a relaxing, lulling tune as she does so.

“Yeah. I got him to calm down and stop crying,” Keris agrees. “And... that’s also sort of the other good news that you might be less happy about.” She steps into Dulmea’s line of sight in the mirror, still cradling Rathan and letting him make grabby motions at a lock of her hair she’s teasing him with. He’s actually not doing too badly with grabbing it, but his ice-pearl palms are making it hard for him to keep a solid grip on the tendril once he has it.

Dulmea finishes brushing her current strand, and then carefully puts down her ivory hairbrushes. “Oh, child,” she says, putting her hair on her hips. “So this is what this soul is at heart, is that so?”

Keris nods. “He’s just a baby,” she explains sheepishly. “And we - _I_ \- left him all alone up in his moon for ages. I thought since it had _come_ from him, or with him, that he’d want to stay there. But... he’s only little, and he’s lonely. And I can tell you, nearly dead certain, that the second I let go of him he’ll start wailing again.”

She smiles down at her... soul? Son? Sibling? All three, maybe. He looks back up at her with the curious wonder of a newborn, and she bites back a coo.

“I think part of why Echo is so smart and happy all the time is that we pay attention to her,” she says slowly. “But Rathan can’t run around like she can, and he was stuck up there in the sky. All he could do was cry. So, uh... can you keep him down here, and play with him and talk to him? He seems to like your music.”

This much is true. Rathan’s curious stare has moved to Dulmea’s hands; his head lolling sideways to see the source of the sound properly. Keris’s lips twitch upwards slightly. “And maybe if you start teaching him about tea ceremony and proper behaviour early, he’ll be less... uh... _enthusiastic_ than Echo is.”

Dulmea approaches warily, reaching out with her hair to cup his chin. He coos with pleasure, and tries to reach out to grab for her moving fingers, mostly because they’re moving. She briskly avoids the icy grab.

“Well, I suppose, if he’s quieter this way and doesn’t trap me inside and dissolve my structures,” she says, a slightly... well. Keris realises that despite everything Dulmea said about not getting where humans come from, she has that slightly goofy cooing expression which people seem to get when they look at babies. “I certainly am not short of time,” she says, “and for peace and quiet... well, I can look after him somewhat.” Her hair entangles with his fine prehensile hair, combing it out like how a human might comb hair with their fingers. “He will require your attention too, child,” she adds.

“I know,” Keris nods. “I’ll make some playmates for him, I think, or help him make his own - Echo has her wind-dancers, but he deserves something of his own. And I’ll make sure to spend time with him when I’m in here.” She strokes his hair, remembering the scrolls in her library and what they said about the light of the red moon. “I might need to call on his light, too,” she observes. “Like calling on Echo for killing. He’ll probably like that, so I’ll see if I can use plans that involve doing it where I can.”

Dulmea leads Keris to the table. She’s prepared some food here, too, as well as more tea. Keris isn’t sure if Dulmea actually needs to eat, but she certainly survives mostly on tea. This one is a peppery, pale blue brew, and the food resembles rice, if rice grains were as large as one’s fist and had to be cut apart with steak knives. And tasted sort of meaty. “That would be fine, child,” Dulmea says.

Keris feeds Rathan a little, though he’s not really up to chewing very much, and carefully uses her hair to eat and drink. The meal is only half-over, however, when she feels someone shaking her body in the outside world.

“I’m waking up,” she warns Dulmea, hurriedly passing Rathan over. Thankfully, he’s half-dozing, and only murmurs a little as she drops a quick kiss on his forehead and transfers him from her hair to Dulmea’s. She’s not actually sure he even notices the change.

Then she musters her acting skills, closes her eyes, and opens them to the outside world once more.

It’s before dawn, and it’s one of the male servants who looks like - until they saw Keris - they were mopping the courtyard, getting it ready before anyone else wakes. Keris is wet, she realises. There’s been a shower she must have missed when her mind was elsewhere.

“Ah?” she says. It’s a nice, safe word. It could mean practically anything. “I was... meditating.”

((Oh, Rathan. By your nature, you’re a lot more dependent than Echo, who by hers is basically independent))

“Ah, venerable one. I did not mean to disturb you. I merely noticed you sitting here, and thought to ask you what you were doing.”

Keris gets to her feet, winces - sitting in seizure that long has left her feeling achy and sore - and rubs at her back ruefully. “I spent rather longer in prayer last night than I intended,” she says. “When I got back here, the doors were closed and nobody was awake. I settled down to meditate and wait for the household to wake up.”

“I see, venerable one.” The man shifts. “Are the gods and spirits pleased?” he asks nervously.

Keris tilts her head. “They are satisfied with my actions in their name, and pleased by your household’s kindness,” she allows. “Though soon I must move on. The Sower would see my spread their word elsewhere, once things are settled here.”

The servant half-bows to Keris. “Thank you, venerable one. My lady... I have served the family for a long time, and she has always been faithful and true. I am pleased that the gods acknowledge such faith.”

Keris sketches a mudra of blessing-given-generously in the air before him, and gives him a kind nod before heading in towards breakfast. It shouldn’t, she hopes, take more than a few more days to get things sorted out here, and then she can go home to Sasi.

((So, what are her goals for the next few days?))  
((Get the prayers and rituals and hymns and so on taught to people, or at least written down to be referred to. Keep playing the “incredibly humble and selfless monk who has given us great riches but seems to ask nothing for himself” role, which is probably making a Pattern Spider somewhere cry. Strongly imply that the Sower is generous to those who worship them, and that the devout are the first to receive further gifts such as the one they’ve already been given.))  
((So, hmm. Cog + Subterfuge for ‘taking lines of doing it so they won’t realise she’s trying to persuade them of things’, Per + Expression for ‘luring them onto the path you want’. Charms and excellency use can help, as can stunting.))

Keris spends the next few days acting. Very, very carefully. Her words to Dulmea are proven almost immediately, as she calls on Rathan’s light at the start of each day, haloing herself in a protective aura of innocence. Then she goes to work.

It’s hard, but... also strangely easy, playing a role so different from herself. The man she’s pretending to be is almost completely selfless, wishing nothing for himself even as he hands out fortunes to others. He’s almost too good to be true, and that’s why she lets a few hints slip as to his fictitious past when suspicious looks linger too long on her.

He grew up among unpleasant folk - she never says the word “Lintha”, but she can see it cross a few minds - and saw what wealth did to those without piety and noble intentions. The Sower’s generosity saved him from becoming like them, and perhaps he fears what wealth would turn him into. It’s close enough to her own story in some details that she can put real emotion into the tale of how the Sower saved her from a fate worse than death. And if the looks become more sympathetic and even pitying after that, with the knowledge of what the Lintha do to their own and the remembered terror on her face at the thought of the cell... well, it means they’re no longer suspicious, at least.

And she drops more hints than that as she recites prayers and transcribes songs for the scribes that Joyous Raven bades attend her. She speaks of altruism and generosity, of wealth as a seed in the soil of human morals. What grows from it will tell one much, and fertile soil begs to be planted. She thanks them and praises their kindness to her each night, and lets them come to their own conclusions of their favour in the eyes of her deity.

((Cog+Subterfuge=2+5+3 Mendaciloquent Maverick+1 {contains a grain of truth}+2 stunt=13. 8 sux.

Per+Expression=3+5+2 stunt+4 Kimmy ExSux {talent for temptation, patronage and kindness are real, thinks she is fair}=10. 6+4=10 sux.

Use of Carmine Mantled Emissary. Persuasion+Politics = 3+1+2 stunt+2 Kimmy ExSux {beauty, charm, poise, shameful truths kept secret}=6. 1+2+(Essence)=6 sux. dice fairies y u so cruel~))

It all goes... well, pretty much as well as she could have hoped. She doesn’t set the entire place on fire, and in fact by the time she’s thinking about leaving, there’s a little icon of the Sower in the family shrine.

“Thank you very much,” Joyous Raven tells the priest formally, accompanied by her chaperones. “You are always welcome here, for the help you have given us. Thank you.”

“I will be sure to come by and pay my respects if my journeys bring me this way again,” Keris promises, and more or less means it. At least to the extent that she totally intends to bribe them deeper into the Sower’s worship with more gifts. And after a while the Shashalme can start giving them things themselves, and that’s good for everyone, because the Red Mountain get gifts, the Shashalme gets worship and Keris doesn’t get squashed by an irritated Unquestionable!

Situations where everyone wins are the best, Keris thinks. Especially when they involve her not getting squashed by terrifyingly powerful demon gods.

She picks up Firisutu from where he has, grudgingly, been staying on the outskirts of the town, and sheds the monk guise with a sense of relief as she plunges back into the river and heads for the sea. She hasn’t had to hold a cover for so long before - Kasseni took longer, but she was in her own skin for that. It’s... freeing, to be herself again. And she can’t wait to see Sasi.

It’s early in Falling Wood and Keris can already feel the heat of the season of Fire just waiting around the corner. The humidity has taken a sudden spike after the new moon, and despite the short period, she can see that all along the banks of the river everything is even more overgrown.

Now that she knows how to create life, she can’t quite seem to stop thinking about things she could make. Blade-fish for the bitchy snake to hunt in the fog, playmates for Rathan, termite-trolls to turn every tree into a tiny city... the possibilities seem limitless, and she only convinces herself to hold back on wild experimentation by reminding herself to talk to Sasi about it first.

That’s probably not why her heart leaps as she sees An Teng in the distance, though, or why she does a little flip of joy up and out of the water before arrowing down to the coast and along to the city proper. She shows up at Sasi’s door still-wet, crusted with salt from going through the harbour and barefoot. A tiny monkey with a body of junk and a skull for a head clings to her shoulder. She holds a bouquet of flowers; brightly coloured and vivid, that are nowhere to be found in Creation, and she bypasses the door in favour of Sasi’s bedroom window.

But she’s grinning all the while.

Because Keris got a little bit distracted by... well, several things, it’s late evening by the time she gets in. The sun is setting to the west, bloody red. An Teng looks over the bay and so Keris has a wonderful sight of the flaming skyline.

And Sasi is at her desk with the blinds closed. Wide-eyed she stares up at Keris’ dripping form, and quickly whisks her paperwork away from the damp silhouette of her lover.

“I see you had fun,” Sasi begins.

“I had _lots_ of fun,” Keris crows, bending to let Firisutu hop down onto the bedside table, where he takes one look at the delicate oil lamp sitting there and immediately starts taking it apart to get at the dish inside. Keris ignores him in favour of giving Sasi a slow up-and-down look. It consistently amazes her how Sasi manages to look _even prettier than she remembers_. Every time.

“But now I get to have even more,” she purrs happily, and wills her Amulet away - along with most of the water that isn’t in her hair - before darting in for a hug and a kiss. The flowers get a little bit crushed in the process, though enough of them survive for it not to be too embarrassing when Keris pulls back and sheepishly presents Sasi with them. “For you,” she says, blushing faintly.

Sasi stares at them. “Keris?” she asks breathily, “What are these? I’ve never seen them before.”

“Well, there’s lots of bamboo up in the Middle Lands,” Keris explains. “Like, lots of bamboo. Lots and lots and _lots_ of bamboo. You can barely move for the stuff. And I ended up learning how to move through it like how I’m so good in the water, and it looks like I did it by taking in a bit more of the All-Hunger Blossom - not his hunger, his, uh... plant stuff. And now these are growing in my Domain.” She smiles shyly. “You’re the first person to ever see them, bar me. Well, I suppose they might grow in Malfeas, but... even then, probably only where the Swamp meets the Ocean like it does in me. Maybe not even there.”

Sasi rises, finds one of the containers of water she leaves lying around to keep the place cool, and carefully places the flowers in the container, arranging them. “They’re beautiful,” she tells Keris, breaking off one flower and tucking it behind her ear. She smiles. “If you’re ever prepared to give up this whole silly ‘murdering force of the Silent Wind’ thing, I foresee a great career for you as a gardener.”

Keris blushes happily and kisses her again. “Oh, yeah,” she says, before she forgets. “And also I sort of...” She trails off into mumbles and gestures back at Firisutu, who is intently debating which paw to tie the lamp wick from the deconstructed oil lamp around.

Sasi tilts her head, closing her eyes - or at least her normal eyes. “Hmm. Some serf,” she says. “So you learned to summon at last, but...” she trails off.

Keris bites her lip. “That... is a thing that might have happened, yes,” she agrees. “Summoning is one thing I could have done. But, uh. I also sort of... didn’t.” She squirms slightly under Sasi’s steady stare. “I may have... sort of... made him?” she says. It’s as much question as statement.

“Made. Him,” Sasi says flatly.

“Well, sort of. Well, not exactly. I mean, the monkey body he made himself, from bits. I just made, uh, the bit inside. Which I would show you, but he’d start squeaking and shaking again. I don’t think he likes being exposed.” Keris is vaguely aware that she’s babbling, but can’t quite seem to stop doing so.

Sasi massages her brow. “I’m not even surprised,” she says, mostly to herself. “Not even surprised. Of course you can make serfs. You have multiple souls and...” she trails off.

“Keris,” she asks suspiciously. “Have your souls started spawning souls?”

“Ye- n... uh...” Keris pauses, considering that. “Uh. Hmm. Sort of? I mean, I’ve made two kinds, but apparently Echo’s playmates aren’t just mindless copies like Dulmea’s musicians, they’re actually serfs. I’m... not sure when that happened. From how smug she’s being about it, I think it might have been before I worked out the trick to it. She makes them when she dances.” She pauses and thinks some more. “Oh, and Rathan was crying so I brought him down from the moon for Dulmea to look after and he’s been much happier since then, but that’s not really connected so never mind.”

Sasi points at the door. “Bath! Now! Go wash yourself up, clean your hair so you don’t smell of harbour water, and get your thoughts in order.” She leans in and kisses Keris on the lips. “I will have dinner prepared - you look hungry, and we can have a proper meal together for once. Then once we do that, we can talk in safety.” She smiles. “Well, the talking might have to wait.”

Keris grins too, scoops up the mavaroska from his careful evaluation of the pillows and tumbles out the door towards a much-needed bath.

Keris has a surprise when dinner comes. When Sasi said she would have dinner prepared, it seems she literally meant it. She seems to have made it herself. It’s made in the Realm style with perhaps a few more Malfean elements, rather than anything local to An Teng. And Sasi made it with her own two hands!

... well, Keris heard her cooking it. She was using strange Pyrian reality-warping to do things like heat food and slice things and didn’t actually use her hands at all. And was reading a book at the same time. But the point stands!

“I dismissed the servants for the evening,” Sasi explains. “Sometimes I do that, especially when I want food which doesn’t leave my mouth on fire.”

“Wait, _non-super-spicy_ food?” Keris asks, and barely waits for Sasi’s confirmation before digging in with a decadent moan. “I love youuuu~” she sings blissfully. “So much. _So much_. Ooo, bean paste!” She pounces.

The meal is wonderfully not-mouth-burning.

“You probably don’t want to know what the raw ingredients to some of these things are,” Sasi advises with a quiet smile.

Keris raises an eyebrow. “If it’s ‘cause you think I’ll think they’re icky, remember what I used to eat,” she points out. “... though actually you probably do remember that so never mind, I’m happier not knowing. How’ve you been? Have things been going well?”

“Adequately,” Sasi says simply. “I’ve started work on... mmm, controlling certain famed establishments which cater for Dynastic tourists of certain proclivities. I don’t need full control - I just need enough to be able to nudge them. And of course, I’ve been looking for dirt on that annoying jumped up little Nellens magistrate,” she adds, a frown flashing over her face.

Keris wrinkles her nose in distaste. “Still think killing him would be easier,” she mutters under her breath, and raises her hands quickly at Sasi’s response. “I know, I know; don’t draw the Realm’s attention. Urgh. Well, the Red Mountain family are happily worshipping the Sower now, and I’ve got an open invitation to come back whenever. Joyous Raven likes me, I think. Or, well, the monk I was pretending to be, in between oh! I didn’t tell you! Or... I did, but not in... yeah, so, the mine.”

She stacks a few of empty plates to clear a spot of the table and starts sorting through papers in her soul-library. “It was deep; _really_ deep. Eight hundred yards if it was an inch, water all the way down. I don’t think the people living on top of it had any idea. The plug was made of the same white stone they use here, and there was rubble from an old broken one that had been higher up, too. Echo helped me clear away the mud - the stuff right over the lower plug tasted of the Contagion. And it was really, really thick stone - yards and yards and yards - but I could hear hissing and steam and moving metal under it.”

She finds the right scroll at last and unrolls it onto the table. “There was writing on the top of the lower plug, but I couldn’t read it. I had Dulmea copy as much as we could see. Can you make out what it says?”

Sasi leans over the scroll. “Those with honour do not enter this place,” she almost breathes. “That’s... that’s a curse-warning typical of Shogunate secret locations.” She taps on the page. “Oh my. Oh my. The map, please.”

Keris passes her the map in question, and Sasi traces one long fingernail over the location.

“Keris,” she says. “I... I half-suspect that... that we may have misinterpreted this map. I don’t think the settlement was called the Catalyst of the Red Sunrise.” She taps the symbol. “I think that was the name of whatever was stored there.”

“... stored there?” Keris cocks her head and hums. “The stuff underneath, I suppose. Okay. Neat. So... what is it?”

Sasi spreads her hands. “I have no idea,” she says. “Maybe it’s Shogunate. Maybe it’s older. But with a name like that, it might be a weapon. And if it isn’t a weapon, we might be able to make it into one.”

Keris _grins_. “Do I have permission to break in and see what I can find, my lady?” she asks in formal tones. “Or will you come with me to see? Hmm. It’s... not exactly fine living out there. But if we’re going to access it, we probably want to use Sorcery to get down there more easily than... uh, swimming.”

Sasi plays with her chopsticks. “Well,” she says. “If it’s a secure Shogunate facility, it will no doubt be guarded and protected, even now. And may well have some kind of self-destruct. We might want to focus our efforts here in An Teng as getting this, as a major goal.” She pauses. “It will be embarrassing to say the least if we are wrong,” she admits. “But I do not think, based on your description, that this will be a small goal if we want to make full use of it. We will need to control the land, and prevent _anyone_ else from finding out what we’re up to - unless we can compromise them. That includes the local spirit courts and the elementals. And as I mentioned, that insufferable Nellens magistrate is interested in the history of An Teng.”

She trails off. “But if it is real... it is beyond value.”

Keris purses her lips. “We want something to take a look, then, yeah? I could make a serf to burrow down, peek inside and then come back up. And it’s at the bottom of eight hundred yards of water. That goes a long way towards...”

She tails off, and sits silent for a moment or two before picking up again. “... local spirit courts. And elementals. Would... would a giant stone centipede as long as a street be likely to be in charge of those, do you think?”

Sasi glowers. “That is not impossible. What happened? And no,” she adds. “I don’t think we wish to send a demon in. That’s the sort of thing which would trip major defence protocols. This is what I mean by it being a major undertaking - we can’t half-arse it, to use your crude Nexan vernacular.”

Keris grimaces. “There’re a few hills that are made of all the stuff dug out of the mine. I went to investigate a cave in one of them; tried to dig out some tunnels in it. Then the giant centipede woke up, nearly deafened me, poked its head out of the side of the hill, turned around, went back into the hill and as far as I know went back to sleep.” She rubs her ears in rueful memory. “It was really, really, _really_ loud. And hurt. A lot.”

“Hmm. So noted,” Sasi says, swirling around the wine in her glass.

Keris drums her fingers on the table, chewing her hair thoughtfully. “It’s Grey Owl territory, but it’s poor. Even the local lord’s house is a tiny wooden thing. So I think the first thing we’d want to do is get the village on our side. Wait, no.” She shifts gears, and considers it in the light of a burglary. “The _first_ thing we want to do is scope it out some more. Get a handle on the spirit courts and the other villages and roads around the place; where and when and who and all that stuff. I can probably handle that part, if I take a few days to do it and stay subtle.”

“Poor and isolated,” Sasi says to herself, as if she’s considering something. “Well, either way, I think we need total control over that valley. It’s isolated enough that it shouldn’t have much passing traffic.” She smiles to herself. “That’s the kind of place people believe are packed full of Yozi worshippers anyway.”

Keris nods. “Got it.” She tilts her head. “Are we going to keep this just between us for now? I mean, we don’t want to disappoint anyone, so until we know what it is there’s not _so_ much point in reporting it, right?”

Sasi reaches out and traces Keris jaw with one finger. “Good girl,” she says. “You’re learning. I think we’ll even keep it from Deveh for now. Not until we need his help for certain.”


	8. Chapter 8

Keris is woken the next morning by the sounds of the market and what sounds like forty roosters all choosing to crow together.  Snarling a creative trilingual oath against obnoxious cocks, she throws a pillow in the vague direction of the window and snuggles further into Sasi’s chest.

Sadly, it doesn’t buy her any more sleep - now that she’s awake, she’s staying that way short of submerging herself in something. Grumbling malevolently under her breath, she worms her way out of bed, tenderly tucks Sasi back in, closes the heavy curtain her pillow has knocked open and goes in search of either breakfast or a bath.

She finds both. Sasi has apparently already tasked a servant with taking account of the fact that Keris wakes up much, much earlier with Sasi and thus their role is to prepare a bath and breakfast for just after sunrise.

Keris immediately decides to do something very, very nice for her... um... her... her whatever-Sasi-is-to-her that night. The cool bath is blissful in the muggy heat of dawn, and with clean hair and a full belly, she sits down with a modern map of the valley around White Bridge Rising Over Water and starts circling all the settlements large enough to be marked down.

It’s fairly isolated, and due to the shallowness of the rivers and the way they’re mere tributaries, it doesn’t see much passing traffic. The closest town of any size at all is a market town called Shadow of the White Spire - which seems to be built around some kind of temple - and that’s tiny, perhaps a thousand people. The entire area is relatively unpopulated and choked with bamboo forests - what trade there is comes from people growing tea on the slopes of the many hillsides.

Keris nods, pleased at that. Taking over the valley looks... doable. She might just about be able to manage it herself, if Sasi wanted to stay back where it was, um, less rural.

Reentering the bedroom, she loses her happy smile at the sight of another of those little nests of... things, in the corner. It seems to have largely been constructed around and into one of the weird little artistic sculptures Sasi likes to have around the house. The mavaroska sitting on top of it looks very pleased with himself.

“... right,” Keris sighs. “Okay, come here. You’re going downstairs where you won’t frighten the maids. C’mon, up. Sasi’ll be awake soon, I don’t want her getting annoyed.”

The mavaroska mewls and wriggles up into Keris’ hair, clinging onto the back of her head. He’s... starting to get somewhat pungent.  She breathes in evaluatingly, tasting the air and licking her lips. “... yeah, definitely getting you downstairs,” she decides. “She’ll complain if it smells when she wakes up.”

By the time she’s wrangled the little monkey-creature into one of the hidden basement levels and scattered a selection of random items from her Domain around the bare room he’s occupying to keep him busy - including quite a few sweet-smelling flowers, in the hopes that he’ll take the hint - Sasi has begun to wake up, and Keris innocently sidles in front of the nest-thing when she gets back to the bedroom.

Sasimana rubs her eyes and makes a noise best approximated as ‘gnaaaaaarfle’.  Keris snickers. But quietly. Crawling onto the bed, she winds her hair around Sasi and strokes her soothingly.

It takes her a while to wake up, but Sasi is finally up and dressed and looking somewhat more human. Infernal Exalt. Whatever. Sitting at her bedside table, she brushes her hair. “So what are your plans?” she asks Keris. “Are you occupied with anything at the moment?”

“Nothing immediate,” Keris says, shaking her head. “The Shashalme’s cult is started - I’ll leave the Red Mountain for a while before going back to push it up further. And we can’t do anything about the Catalyst until we have the valley under control.” She drops the map on the bed, unfurled. “There’s not too much there. We shouldn’t have too much trouble claiming it. I could probably do it the blunt way with bribes and threats if I had to.” She frowns. “Hmm. Maybe I should make some of them love me. Though then they’d get kind of useless on their own... well, we’ll see.”

“Hmm,” Sasi says, tracing out the map. “Yes, that makes sense. That’s far off any of the trading routes, and,” a different book floats down from one of the shelves and she takes it in her hands while waves of force hold her hairbrush up, “if I check these family lineages...” she flicks through, “... none of them are wealthy. They’re all minor families - peasant stock or low nobility. One thing we have to worry about is,” she smiles, “drawing attention if they suddenly acquire money or status beyond the normal. But on the other hand, they’ll be cheap.”

“The land’s poor up there,” Keris notes. “It might be worth summoning something to see if there are any untapped mines. The mine above the Catalyst had some of that... the, you know, the white chalky stuff that’s pretty and people make statues out of it and it’s really good for crops as well? The slag pile hills tasted of it. If we could find more of that, it’d be a better bribe than gold in a lot of ways. And perfect for more cult-making, if I pointed them to it.” She frowns. “Aren’t there... the demjen? They’re good at looking for ores, aren’t they?”

Sasi nods. “Hmm, yes. And they do need water, so while they don’t work so well in the mountains, down here they’re close to rivers.”

Keris smiles happily, then sighs. “Aww, but if I’m up there doing stuff all the time, I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too,” Sasi says. She rises, and goes over to another bookshelf, all the time still brushing her hair. “If you do have some free time, I would ask you to take a trip up to the High Lands and take a look at what Deveh is doing. Nothing too in-depth, but I want to be sure that he isn’t...” she shudders, “turning entire areas of land into crystal or something like that. I know he’s taking orders from Unquestionable Iasestus, the Arbitrator of Doctrine.” She raises a hand. “If you’re too busy, though, I’ll send a few agatae to take a look. Don’t feel too pressured, dear one.”

Keris shrugs. “I still haven’t met him, and I’m probably better at not being noticed. And I haven’t seen the High Lands yet. I’ll take a look.” She grins. “Anyway, it helps me pretend I came down from the High Lands if I’ve actually been to some of the cities up there.”

She eyes Sasi’s careful hair-brushing and, with a cheeky grin, scoops it out of her hand with a hair-tendril and sets her own locks to... well, not finger-comb, because her hair is a lot finer than fingers, but gently untangle and straighten Sasi’s hair strand-by-strand, smiling at the intermingling of red and silver.

Sasi sighs in pleasure. “It almost makes acquiring hair which could do that seem worthwhile,” she says, and then pauses. “But unfortunately I can’t, because I can’t keep my hair as long as yours and I wouldn’t be able to use it to its full,” she adds hastily.

“You have invisible mind hands,” Keris points out. “I don’t think you can complain.” She cocks her head. “I read that the Whispering Pyre sees the world by touching it,” she adds. “Only... without touching it. How does that work?”

Sasi smiles, and Keris feels unseen hands running over her and brushing her hair in turn. “Because I touch this way too,” she says. “I ‘feel’ everyone within range, and when I focus and you feel that prickling, it’s... well, my flesh is so much less sensitive.” She pauses, and frowns. “You know the feeling when someone is looking at you and standing behind you?”

“Yes,” says Keris.

“Like that. Only far, far more intense, and not just looking.”

Keris’s eyes widen. “Like my-hearing level intense? Huh.” She grins. “I might have to look into learning how to do that. It would be really useful for still-stuff that doesn’t make noise.”

“I’ve been learning things too,” Sasi says, smugly.

Keris cocks her head. “Oh? Like what?”

“Oh, just something small,” Sasi says. “Oh, and I did mention that I got you a small present? Oh? I forgot? Well, it must have slipped my mind. Let me remedy that.”

Sasi steps back and thrusts her hand into the wall. No, Keris realises, into her shadow. It’s suddenly much, much darker than it should be and Keris can see a dim blue glimmer in it which seems sort of like... like sapphires. She withdraws her hand from her shadow, and she’s holding a small beautifully decorated pot of something.

“It’s lip-paint of the kind which is in-fashion in the Tengese court at the moment,” she says, radiating Sasi smugness. “It’s gold,” she adds, when Keris looks inside. “As in, literally, it’s made of flakes of gold. Quite expensive.”

Keris gapes. It’s a very impressive stunned look. Her mouth opens and closes a few times, and her earrings droop and fold into wide hoops. “Was...” she stutters, taking the pot - which, yes, smells of gold; really pure gold - “was that... like how I put things through my hair? To Dulmea? In my soul-sanctum?”

“You know,” Sasi says, frowning, “I’m not entirely sure if it’s the same thing, exactly. I tried to do what you said all the time we were on vacation together, and it never seemed to work. I had to sit down and design that little place from scratch, building it up with sorcerous notation and geomantic calculations. But certainly, there is now a world within me and my coadjutor has form in there.”

Keris stares at her wide-eyed for long enough that Sasi starts to get a little worried, and then explodes with a gleeful squeal loud enough to make her flinch.

“Ohmycan’tbelievethis _Sasi!_ This is so amazing! I knew you could do it! Well, I didn’t because I didn’t know you were trying to though I guess you sort of were paying attention when I did stuff with it and oh! You’ve met your coadjutor then! And now they have a place to live and that’s great and are you friends now only you’ve never said much about them not even if they’re a boy or a girl and I thought maybe you didn’t get along that well and wait hang on what do you mean ‘little place’; mine is the size of a neighbourhood and wait hang on again do you have _gold mines in your actual soul, Sasi_ , is that a thing that you seriously have now?” She pins Sasi with a glare, feeling that this last point is a rather important one.

Sasi laughs. “Well, to the last part, goodness no. Your soul sounds a lot larger and more exciting than mine. I simply bought that for you and put it in there so I could surprise you. Mine is,” she pauses for a moment, “well, it’s shadowy caves. It’s not very large - maybe the size of this house?” She shakes her head. “It is... interesting how my agata has changed. He’s become quite a lot smaller, and he’s now made of fine milky stone and crystal, rather than gold.”

Keris giggles. “Yeah. Dulmea changed from what she used to be as well. I think she took a bit of the Ocean into herself as I did - she used to use poisons a lot, so maybe mine liked her.” She pauses. “... also I think she’s with child? Or looks like it? I’m... not sure what that mea- oh! Do... do you have souls as well? Like Echo?”

Sasi nods. “Two, it seems,” she says with a quiet note of wonder. “A demonic female figure of shadows who I only saw out of the corner of my eyes, who piped music and... and I believe may be kin to Erembour. And a young child in robes of blue glass who forbade me entry to the cave she had claimed by calling up a wall of glass to keep me out and did not speak to me when I called out to her.”

Keris’s mouth twitches slightly. “So a shy little girl and a bossy brat, then,” she sums up with an admirably straight voice. The effect is admittedly lost somewhat when she has to fan her hair in front of her face to hide her spreading grin.

“I don’t think the shadow was young,” Sasi corrects, narrowing her eyes. “Though I could not see her that well, she looked to be even taller than me.”

“... huh.” Keris chews on that for a moment. “Both of mine were young. Strange. But yeah, this is great!” She gives Sasi a hug. “I’m so proud and happy for you!”

“It certainly is... interesting,” Sasi says. She doesn’t sound quite as enthusiastic as Keris, although... it doesn’t seem to be about the world itself or either of the souls she mentioned. She seemed to be quite proud about _those_.

((Cog+Politics=3; 1 sux.))

Keris cocks her head, frowning. If it’s not her souls or her world... ohhh, maybe she had a fight with her coadjutor. Keris still remembers the way Dulmea had retreated inside after... um, the Thing, just before she first found her soul-sanctum, and the way she’d been standoffish and scared. Sasi and her coadjutor must have had a similar falling out, or something. Maybe it was upset by its changes, like Dulmea is.

She cuddles Sasi a bit tighter and changes the subject - there’s not much she can do to help, and Sasi probably doesn’t want to dwell on it.

“Well, I don’t want to run off and leave you again after so little time spent with you - and I certainly want to try out my new lip paint.” She waggles her eyebrows suggestively. “Oh, and I suppose I also need to wait for you to summon some demjen - hey, they can live in the lowest basement; the nice damp one! Uh, but yeah, in that case I’ll stay here for a while before heading up to the valley and drop the demjen there to start surveying the land while I go check out what Deveh’s doing in the High Lands.”

“That’d be lovely,” Sasi says, hugging back. “And in the mean time, I do have a few things which it would be very useful if you might help me with. Can you believe that certain Realm merchants apparently are smuggling opiates via a certain warehouse on the docks? Wouldn’t it be just dreadful if there was a mysterious fire there?”

Keris raises her eyebrows. “Wait, the Lintha-tunnel warehouse? Or a different warehouse?” She pauses. “... are they expensive opiates?”

“A different place. I don’t believe this operation is linked to the Lintha - the opiates appear to come within An Teng and are exported. I think they’re bypassing the export duties. As for cost?” Sasi makes a planative gesture. “I don’t know. They’ll probably have refined them down somewhat because poppies are bulky, but I’m not actually sure where the warehouse is. I was thinking that if you had a few days to spare, you might be able to sniff it out.”

Keris snickers. “Sniff it out. Heheh. Yeah, I’ll take a look. You won’t, um, need the opiates for anything, will you? Hey, actually, if the whole warehouse burns down then everything inside will be lost!” She brightens. “They probably won’t even be able to sort out what’s what from the ashes.”

“I’d... prefer if it wasn’t entirely lost,” Sasi says. “I need this to be an _embarrassment_ , not just a fire. People need to find this - and the Tengese don’t generally approve of opiates. And the Realm doesn’t approve of tax avoidance.”

Keris pouts. “Fine, I suppose I can just have a little bit. And maybe give Echo and Rathan some to see how they react to it.” She nods. “Embarrassing fire started by them being lazy and incompetent, burns down a fair bit of the warehouse but not so much that they can’t save it - maybe just before a rainstorm to help put it out - a few surviving barrels of illegal drugs out where they’ll be found. Got it.”

Sasi seems almost about to say something at the idea that Keris wants to feed opiates to her souls, and then shakes her head. “Very well,” she says. “I’ll add the demjen to my summoning list and move other things out of the way.”

“Wonderful! Oh, uh. Speaking of demons, I put Firisutu down in the basement levels,” Keris admits. “He sort of, um...” she gestures vaguely back at the sculpture-nest-thing. “Yeah, I figured you wouldn’t want him doing that in the house.”

Sasi pinches her brow. “Thank you,” she says.

“Sorry,” says Keris sheepishly. Then smirks. “Maybe I could make it up to you?”

Sasi massages her brow with real feeling this time. “I’m afraid I may have to put that off,” she says. “I need to get ready for a lunch I need to be present at, and before that I need to prepare certain individuals for their roles there.” She kisses Keris on the lips. “Your life is much simpler with far fewer lengthy lunches,” she says.

“Could do with a few more,” Keris mumbles to herself, but returns the kiss. “I’ll go sniffing around for your warehouse, then,” she decides. “Is there anything that could narrow it down a bit and let me know where to start looking?”

“I believe it’s near the Fifth Dragon Docks,” she says.

Keris nods and kisses her again. “Got it. Good luck with your dinner!” She grins. “At least now you’ll find it easier to smuggle in something to entertain you. Oh, just to check, you’ve figured out the trick of looking inward without going all the way to sleep, right?”

Sasi nods. “Meditative contemplation was the first way I discovered it. It’s harder to get in when I’m fully asleep.”

Keris nods, and hesitates. “You’re, uh, keeping a weapon in there? A good one?”

“Falling Rain - and for when a bow isn’t suitable, I have a sword,” she says.

“Good,” is Keris’s blunt reply. “I’ll feel a lot better now that you can defend yourself properly if something like that auction happens again.” She gives Sasi one more kiss and a hug, and then heads out with a wave and a skip to her step.

((Okay, this entire thing is basically just something Sasi sort of wanted doing so she had Keris do it if she happens to be around. It’s not challenging for Keris so can be resolved with a few rolls.))  
((So Cog + Awareness to smell out the place, then a Physique + (something) roll based on how she deals with the place))

Her first stop isn’t the Fifth Dragon Docks, but rather the harbour itself. Keris spends a little time getting used to the echoes and currents of the bay, and then heads to the white pipe into the sewers that she’d found last time she was here. She grabs a couple of snake eels en-route, along with several catfish and, in the spirit of experimentation, a puffer-fish. Stowing the bodies in her Domain, she lingers around the pipe long enough to get a good taste of the mouth and see if anything has been in or out since her last visit.  She thinks... hmm, there have been animals going in and out via the sewers, but not people. Some human waste - maybe some cesspits connect up to the old sewers.

Then it’s off to the Docks. She slips out of the water on the underside and surveys the row of warehouses with a sigh. This... looks like the start of a rather boring morning.

She’s right. It’s dull, dull, _dull_ ; slipping past mortals who might as well be blind and deaf as she methodically sniffs the air and tastes any barrels that smell even faintly of poppies.

It’s not until nearly noon and warehouse number eight that she finds the place, and by that point she’s feeling very bored and not particularly merciful. As a result, the fire starts in the warehouse manager’s office from a smouldering pipe half-full of the very opiates that are being smuggled. A badly-secured oil lamp falls to the floor and smashes; the flammable liquid only hastening the spread of the blaze, which has dripped down and set half a dozen barrels and a fair portion of the floor below alight by the time anyone realises what’s happening.

One of the opiate barrels isn’t accounted for, but that’s probably not going to be much of a concern for the smugglers. Not after a collapsing beam from the burning gantry, weakened by the fire and splintered by some sort of impact, smashes two of them open right in front of the fire crews that are dousing the floor below. The unmistakable smell of poppy oil fills the air as the thick, heady liquid leaks across the floor.

((... hmm. I’m attacking the merchant group via a vulnerability in the form of their illegal smuggling in order to ruin them; does that qualify for Social Saboteur Style?))  
((Yes.))  
((Physique+SABOTAGE=5+5+3 Social Saboteur+1 bonus {attacks made against identified weaknesses}+2 stunt+3 Adorjani ExSux=16. HAHAHA 13+3=16 successes, _wow_ they are going to be sad merchants.))  
((Dammit Sasi, siccing Keris on mortals probably qualifies as some sort of war crime.))

The warehouse doesn’t go up like a bonfire, but it only doesn’t go up like a bonfire because Keris chose to do it another way. Certainly, there’s no way they can get the fire under control before the smoke starts, and soon there’s the clanging of bells and a great deal of fuss being made outside. Keris sits up on a rooftop with her hands over her ears to shut out a lot of the noise and watches the building burn with a grin on her face.

And then someone notices how the thick smoke is oddly perfumed and then there are people getting dizzy or queasy and even passing out in the smoke and then there’s much more shouting and a lot of pointed questions being asked.

After some entirely justified snickering - and Keris is really going to have to either find or make a way to record things like this for later viewing, because the warehouse workers’ reactions are _hilarious_ ; it’s easy to see which ones were in on it from their expressions as people notice the poppy-scent - Keris returns to the bay and the sewers. She pauses at the turn-wheel thing and examines it in more detail, evaluating whether or not she can take it apart and get it out of the way. The blades are jade, but are the spokes?

((Reaction + Occult to study the thing in full))  
((5+3+2 Coadj+2 stunt=12. 9 sux.))

Looking at it more closely, Keris realises that although to first inspection it looks like only the blades are made of jade, the silver shafts and spokes aren’t actually silver through and through. They’re silver-coated jade. Presumably they cast the jade first, and then painted the silver on over the top. Or whatever you do with silver. The silver is covered in various inscriptions - for wellness, good health, pure water and the names of various gods. It’s quite heavily worn in places. Maybe they had to repair the silver, patch it up and re-engrave it periodically.

Hair coiling and lashing in frustration, Keris mourns the fact that she can’t bring her Lance out in such a tight space, and tries to calm down enough to think logically. She wants the turny-wheel out of the way, so that she can get into the big room behind it. But it is too big to fit down the tunnel, and she’s pretty sure it’s too big for her to squeeze into her Domain as well.

... on the other hand, the room is right behind it. And if she can’t go one way...

Squirming through and wincing as one of the broken blades scrapes against her back again, Keris evaluates it from the other side. If... yes, the wheel itself is jade, but the walls aren’t. If she cuts the axle out, widens the walls a bit and yanks _really hard_ , she... might well be able to just pull the whole thing backwards into the big room and let it fall down. And that would leave it in one piece in case she needs to put it back later. She cracks her knuckles thoughtfully, considering the angles involved.

((Hmm. What roll would this be? Physique+Athletics?))  
((Yeah.))  
((5+5+2 stunt+... lol, does this count as “moving effectively and safely via a liquid medium”?))  
((Yeah, I guess it does.))  
((bwaa haa. 12+4 autosux=5+4=9 sux.))  
((I <3 u kimbery~))  
((... that’s enough to succeed, I presume?))  
((Oh, yes. Easily))

Ascending Air darts in once, twice, thrice and four times; weakening the stonework and goring trenches for the axle to move back through. Two vicious kicks make the mouth of the tunnel crumble, and Keris braces herself against the wall. Hair wound around blades and axle alike, feet planted firmly on solid concrete, she tenses her body like a bowstring and _heaves_...

With a groan of moving stone and crumbling rock, the entire wheel grinds slowly outward before giving way with a crack. Keris and the wheel are both sent catapulting backward into the chamber, and she barely manages to grab onto it and lower it gently to the floor so as not to snap off any more spokes.

... it’s actually rather pretty, now that she can see all of it.

“There we go,” she murmurs with a happy sigh, and shifts her eyes to the silt clogging... everything. “Right then.” She pulls out one of the snake eels and pulls the head off with a casual wrench. Ascending Air gleams in her hand as she makes the first careful slit. “Let’s get started on cleaning this place up.”


	9. Chapter 9

Time passes quickly. Keris finds herself doing a few small jobs around the place - some arson there, a murder here, a theft here - for Sasi and the days pass on. It’s a Season of Wood storm on the day she’s decided to set off. At least the torrential rain is warm, but has taken the edge off the heat.

She purrs happily as she steps into the rain, holding her arms out wide and spinning to take in the lovely blessed water. It’s not as cool as she’d like, but it’s better than the muggy heat. And it’ll knock all the humidity out of the air, which is nice.

Dancing back inside onto the paved tiles, she gives Sasi a goodbye hug and kiss, which takes a while and goes slightly beyond a chaste farewell. “Okay,” she murmurs as she pulls back. “The demjen will meet me in the bay, yeah?”

Sasi has smudged gold paint on her lips. “Yes,” she says. “Remember the token I gave you - that’s how they’ll recognise you. Don’t lose it. And this way, you can give someone else control of them if you need to.”

Keris produces the crystal token with a flick of her hair, and dismisses it just as quickly. “I’ll miss you,” she confides. “A lot. I’ll be back soon, though.” A winsome smile. “Ciao!”

She slips into the harbour with practiced ease, automatically listening and tasting the waters for the demjen’s location. She hesitates before going to meet them, though, and instead flits towards the sewer entrance to check on how her iszangol has been doing.

Squeezing her way through the pipework, Keris finds that the iszangol she left there seems to be considerably larger than it was. It doesn’t seem to have made much progress, but it’s probably half as large again as it was once.

She flashes it a quick grin and a few words of encouragement, and unloads a few of the eel-skins from her Domain for it. She’s... not actually entirely sure if it can use them to make more of itself the same way she can, but if it can, it probably needs the skins to do it.

That done, she retreats back down the tunnel and heads toward the sound of sweet voices. Demjen are of the Silent Wind, she remembers; distant cousins of the angyalkae that trace their lineage back to another of Jacinct’s souls. Maybe that’s why their voices sound nice.

((... huh. This is only the... second, I think, summoned demon that Keris has encountered? Well, this is a group, but still. Hell, even counting Mehuni she hasn’t met many onscreen that weren’t background extras.))  
((... well, I say “demon”. “First Circle”. I’ve met entirely too many of the higher Circles.))

There are five demjen waiting for Keris here - they look... well, they look not entirely unlike Dulmea looks now. They’re beautiful watery female figures whose hair is tendrils, and whose skin is a variety of green-brown shades. Unlike Dulmea, though, they have long fishlike tails several times the length of their bodies, and their arms are much more humanlike.

More relevantly, though, little singing things made of metal crawl over and around them. These are the little servitor things demjen sing out of the earth, Keris remembers, and how they move metal around.

She shows them the crystal token from Sasi before speaking, and waits until they’ve taken it in. “You’re serving me for now,” she says straightforwardly. “Does one of you speak for the group?”

They look between each other. “Do you wish one of us to?” asks one of them. She has the brownest skin of the group - enough that she could even pass for a human skin tone - and wears something which looks like a long shirt made of iridescent fish scales.

Probably like Curaji, then, Keris decides. Too young to really organise themselves independently of orders. If Dulmea had been summoned with a bunch of other angyalkae and left to wait for instructions, she’s willing to bet that Dulmea would have been in charge of the group by the end of the first hour. If that.

“No,” she says aloud. “Not right now, though it’ll make it easier for you to report to me if there’s just one spokesdemon. Do you have names?”

((Heh. There are certain... side effects to being bound by the Cece initiation which might not be there from the Kimmy one. : p))  
((Basically, Sasi is scary. : p))  
((No kidding. But Keris will find that out in due time.))  
((... she’s probably not wrong about the result of putting Dulmea in a group of angyalkae like Curaji and then leaving them for a couple of days, though.))

“I am Megadaca,” says the dark-skinned one. “I do not know the names of these serfs.”

“La,” says one. She has two pickaxes belted at her waist, and a shell-breastplate.

“Aho,” says another, the one with the lavish tattoos coiling down her tail.

“I have no name,” says one of the two others. Those two look the most alike, and unlike the other three, they’re naked.

“I am only demjen,” says the other.

Keris nods. “Choose names,” she tells the nameless pair. “Take your time about it; names are important. I am Keris Dulmeadokht; Chosen of the Silent Wind and the Great Mother.” She pauses for a fraction of a second, realises what kind of reaction that’s likely to get, and quickly adds “I will not harm you as long as you are serving under me.”

A sweep of her hair points them towards the harbour mouth. “We’re travelling up-country via river, which means going down the coast to the rivermouth. Follow me, stay out of sight of the surface, and call out if you start to fall behind. Understood?” She heads off, beginning at a fairly easy pace and slowly speeding up to see how fast the demjen are capable of moving.

((This is going to be slow. : D))  
((*pouts*))  
((Okay, hmm, if we assume that demjen are about as fast as dolphins, that means they travel at about 8mph))  
((...))  
((You are, of course, joking.))  
((Man, Keris can _jog_ faster than that, let alone swim.))  
((Yeah, the 7-8 mph is the sustained speed of dolphins. They can get up to around 20-25, but only for hunting sprints))  
((Okay, roughly measuring up the distances on the map, it’ll take around... uh, 20 hours of swimming to get them there. Assuming Keris doesn’t get lost.))  
((Oh, hey!))  
((They have Landscape Travel. They can swim at double speed.))  
((So they can swim at 15mph.))  
((Oh joy. Almost a quarter of Keris’s normal speed.))

One of the unnamed demjen is the first to call out, at a truly pitiful pace by Keris’s standards. It’s what she might refer to as a light jog - barely any faster than walking. Maybe a fifth of her top speed in water - perhaps a quarter at most.

She sighs and falls back to let them catch up. It’s going to be a loooooong trip.

The slower pace would, perhaps, be a boon to most people. People who navigated by landmarks, or by careful plotting of routes, or by keeping notes about what directions they went on previous trips.

To Keris, whose navigational tactics consist largely of pointing herself in roughly the right direction and then following any promising-looking currents that are going the same way, the slower pace mostly just means she has a lot more time to be bored in.

Keris puts them through a punishing workout which she strongly suspects they’ve never done before. From what she remembers, the demjen mostly spend their time in the sewers and close to the coastline of Malfeas, mining and singing. They’re not creatures of open water. She lets them have an hour of rest at lunchtime, and then it’s back to the punishing swim.

It was early morning when she set off. The sun is setting somewhere behind the rainclouds by the time she arrives in the shallow reed-choked river that leads to the deep pool, five exhausted demjen in tow.

“Okay, only a little further from here,” she tells them, running a critical eye over the trembling limbs and limp fins. “You all did very well,” she tells them, letting sincerity sound in her voice. She’s telling the truth, too. For all that the swim was a slow and boring slog for her, for the demjen it was a marathon. She remembered what she learned from Curaji. Serfs aren’t as strong as she is. These ones have done well to keep up with her like this.

“I’m proud of you for making good time,” she tells them, making eye contact. “And I’ll be telling Sasi that I’m very pleased with you when I see her next. Well done. The pool you’ll be staying in is just down this stream, and you can rest there for as long as you need to recover. There’s plenty of fish if you need to eat - and you can help me by doing so - and it’s deep enough that you can submerge yourselves and sing as much as you like.”

((Persuasion+Presence to bolster their spirits and make them feel accomplished and happy and proud of themselves. 3+5+2 stunt+... huh. I don’t actually have any Styles for speaking as a superior to an inferior. Dang. Well, I’ll throw 3 Kimmy ExSux at it; {impossibly high standards, thinks she is fair, patronage and kindness are real}. 10 dice; 7+3=10 sux. And, heh, your Coadjutor rewrite says I count as playing off what I assume is a 1-dot Principle of theirs for the 3-dot effect of the Background.))

They... uh, seem very inspired. Or possibly tired. Either way, they seem to like the idea of not swimming anymore.

Keris leads them into the pool, and lets them dive down to explore it while she follows the freshwater trails to find her iszangol and check in on how it’s doing. And, uh. Also find out if they actually do have a way of making more of themselves by themselves.  Much like the other one, it seems quite fat, but doesn’t appear to have made any more on its own.

“You need skins, right?” she muses. “Of eels or other long fish. And... yeah,” she looks it over, “I didn’t make you with teeth or anything to get them yourself. Do you think if you had some you could make more iszangols?”

“I suppose so,” it says glumly.

Keris instructs the demjen on how to skin any fish they eat in the right manner, and orders them bring the skins to her creation.

“That’s not what you’re here for, though,” she continues, as the silt-scavenger jets off in disinterest. “I want you - without getting noticed by humans - to survey as much of the valley as you can. This,” she waves to the vast emptiness below them, “this used to be a mine. It can’t be the only ore deposit in the region. Find the others. Especially find any that are untapped, double-especially any precious metals or fertilisers.” She offers them a little of the chalky stuff from the slag piles as an example.

“Mark them down on...” she bites her lip, “... find some way of mapping where they are, or remember their locations. I’m heading up to the High Lands for a while, but I’ll pass through here on my way back to the coast. I don’t expect you to be finished by then - it won’t take me that long - but I’ll want an update on how you’re doing and anything you’ve found by that point.”

“As you command, mighty one who serves one with the authority of the Lawgiver,” Megadaca says, sinuously bowing in the water.

Keris quirks a brow at that, vaguely wondering if the demjen is being cheeky, but decides they’re probably too scared of Sasi to dare. She gives them a nod, then turns and streaks off - at an _interesting_ pace, at last - upriver. Towards the High Lands, and the mysterious Deveh.

It’s getting dark and it’s still raining. Keris considers whether to find somewhere to camp out for the night, or whether she should just head onwards.  She’s not tired from all the swimming, though, and the day was more boring than draining. She presses on, eager for something interesting to liven up the relatively dull day.

((Cog + Survival for navigating through unfamiliar rivers at night going up into the faster-flowing highlands where there are totally waterfalls in the middle of a monsoon : p))

And interesting it is! The rivers become narrower and faster as she approaches the High Lands; the landscape begins to climb and strain skywards like a plant reaching for the sun. When she surfaces and squints forward through the dim light, her view of the sky ahead of her is blocked by mountains in the distance.

The monsoon is not helping things, either. The rivers are faster, the currents are messier, her visibility is almost zero. But Keris hasn’t relied on her eyes to navigate for some time. And, honestly, finding the High Lands isn’t hard, she just has to point herself uphill.

Finding the bit that Deveh is in might be a bit harder, but she trusts the rivers. Water is her element, and the downpour of it from on high only means there’s more for her to follow, streaming down from where she’s going into her waiting mouth and ears, to be sampled, tasted and heard with exacting precision.

It’s nothing so simple as tasting Pyrian crystal in the water. But she can taste rock and altitude and clear air, and those are the streams she follows, sprinting up the sides of cliffs as waterfalls part ahead of her and running atop granite-bedded streams too shallow to swim in as she heads eastward into the mountains.

((2+3+2 stunt+MSM=7. 5+4=9 sux.))

The water changes as she heads east up the river. It’s much faster and cleaner - and colder, too. She’s left the jungles of the Middle Lands behind, and now the river branch she’s following leads her through steep mountain ravines with spare bamboo growing on the slopes. When she scales a waterfall, leaping from drop to drop, in the dawnlight she can see snow on the peaks of the mountaintops, even in the Season of Wood.

Keris whimpers happily at the cold - _such_ a refreshing change from the cloying, humid heat of the Shore Lands; it’s like bathing in liquid bliss. She even slows down a little and lets herself enjoy the trip. A few animals meet sudden and unexpected ends from snarling locks of hair that grab them from near the water’s edge - a few squirrels, another monkey or two, some lizards and, out of sheer curiosity, a pangolin. She tosses the skulls in her Domain - she’ll see if she can make mavaroskae out of them later.

Eventually, though, the novelty wears off somewhat. She leaves her current river and bounds up into the trees, reaching higher and higher until she’s dancing over the fragile leaves at their very peaks, following the course of the river as she goes. Her new vantage point firmly established, she looks around in curiosity.

“Right... okay then. ‘Look for Deveh’. Sasi... kind of neglected to mention where to start looking. I guess I can’t _see_ any obvious giant crystal bits dotting the landscape...”

She continues running for a few moments, idly changing course by 90 degrees to run down a tree trunk as the canopy drops and resuming her run on a lower, thicker carpet of foliage. A flight of parrots takes off in alarm as she passes right through their nests, though she’s gone before any of them clear their tree.

“... Dulmea? Any ideas on where to start looking? Actually... hang on.” A swan dive takes her back into the river, and she comes to a rest at the bottom. “I need to look at the maps again and figure out where I even am.”

Meditating, Keris sinks into her soul and into Dulmea’s room. Dulmea is sitting at her table. She looks slightly frazzled, and has the bulky form of Rathan resting on a cushion beside her, swaddled up in her hair. Nevertheless, she’s already pouring tea. “Child,” she says. “He has been... restless. I think he found you leaving milady Sasimana behind to be disquieting.”

“Awww!” Keris reaches out to take him; two hair-tendrils supporting him, another pair cuddling him and a final two prodding at him until he resumes his game of grab-the-hair. “Don’t worry, little one,” she tells him gently. “I’m doing a very special job for Sasi, and we can go back and see her soon, okay? And in the meantime, you can come to the library with me and help me with a very special job of your own, how does that sound?” She glances up at Dulmea sheepishly. “It’s called, uh, ‘work out where we are because I stopped paying attention to which river I was in about three hours ago’.”

Rathan burbles happily, and grabs at her shoulder, leaning in to blow bubbles - or possibly hum - into her. Either way, his icy lips are cold.

“I will come with you, child,” Dulmea says somewhat wearily, scooping up the tea set with her hair. “Your navigation skills are... not the best.”

In the library, they get to looking through the map.  Keris finds it easiest to trace the rivers. She works from the most recent map, running her finger up the thin blue lines, hissing every so often when she realises she’s following a wrong turn. Rathan helps - well, “helps” - by murmuring nonsense-syllables in her ear and occasionally jabbing at the map with his hair. Mostly it’s at random, but every so often he identifies a stretch of river near a landmark that Keris can vaguely recall passing at high speed, and she makes sure to thank and praise him each time.

((He’s apparently more useful than Echo helping!))  
((Echo gets bored sitting still unless she’s reading music and trying to work out what it sounds like, and dissolves the map when she touches it.))  
((Being more useful than Echo at map-reading is not hard.))

Keris thinks she has things pinned down. Yes, that’s about right. She _did_ take the right turn and she followed the south-most branch of the river, so she’s now in the so-called Theocracy of the Jade-Souled. She vaguely remembers Sasi talking about them - they’re on the border of the territory between the High Lands and the Middle Lands, formally part of the Middle Lands, and they’re... rebellious. Not in a useful way, though - they’ve taken up the worship of the Dragonblooded. Which isn’t popular among the local Tengese or faithful Immaculates.

Deveh is somewhere around their southern border, she thinks. Maybe somewhere near the Halls of Hollow Stone, a town built into old abandoned mines and now sprawling out.

By now she is getting tired - not body-tired, she’s still fine there, but head-tired; weary. Happily, she is in a position to fix this - and is already meditating underwater, even! Four or five hours relaxing in her Domain should put her back on top form, and her body is unlikely to be found in the meantime.

“Okay, Rathan,” she says, tickling her Sixth Soul’s tummy. “I need to relax for a bit, Dulmea needs to have some tea-ceremony time to herself, and you need some attention. So let’s go explore the city, hmm? And you can tell me all about what you’ve been doing.”

Rathan giggles and squirms, clinging onto Keris with his hair and his clumsy arms. She sets off through the window, under the red moonlight of... of, uh, the baby she’s carrying with her.

... that makes her head ache a bit.

They spend a happy few hours running around the Domain and playing. Keris listens to Rathan’s babbling, which still isn’t intelligible - there are a few “ma”s in there, but he was trying to grab the green light of a streetlamp when he said them, not looking at her. She takes him up to the cloud wall to see what he makes of it, though thankfully the snake doesn’t make an appearance. Nor does Echo, though... there do seem to be a _lot_ more of her wind-waifs around than there were last time Keris was here. There’s one particularly disquieting moment when she runs down an alleyway, to find that perched all along the walls on both sides are the waifs, their heads all tilted at an angle. They’re watching Keris, tracking her with their eyes. Or maybe they’re tracking Rathan. Either way, none of them are saying a thing, but there are some soft giggles coming from the gaggle.

Keris wakes happy and refreshed - and Dulmea seems to be a lot better for the six-hour break, too, and takes Rathan back with only minimal reluctance. The baby himself is dozing; utterly worn out by an exhausting night of playing with his mother and babbling almost non-stop.

Working the kinks out of her neck with a series of shuddering cracks, she stretches, yawns and surfaces. It seems to be late morning - her journey up into the highlands kept her going until after midnight, and the first hints of light were peeking over the horizon when she began her meditation.

In the warm noonlight, the landscape seems clean and rejuvenated after the storm, and it only takes Keris a few moments to get her bearings. Path set and location more or less determined, she sets off in the rough direction of the Halls of Hollow Stone.

It’s a run of a couple of hours, over the mountainous landscape between neat little fields and the often-ruined remains of stone castles overlooking the landscape. Looking behind her, Keris can see the heavy black clouds covering as far as to the horizon, but the rain is falling on the Middle Lands at the moment. The rain looks like it’s pushing up over the mountains, but it can’t get past them. Yet. So right now, it’s sunny here, and the air is dry.

Climbing a mountain, mostly because she can, Keris sees the Halls of Hallowed Stone. It looks like a normal Tengese town, built up against older stonework. Older than the white stone of the Shogunate, she thinks - it looks like the same honey-coloured stone the townhouses of Nexus are built of. But here, the honey stone is seemingly carved into the cliff face. It looks like there used to be figures and ornate decorations, but they’ve been wrecked and now just two headless genderless figures the size of giants stand, touching hand-to-hand.

Keris climbs up to the very top of the cliff, sits down on the warm, honey-coloured stone, adopts a meditative position and _listens_. She focuses on her hearing; focuses as hard as she can, cataloguing every sound within her impressive range and discarding the ones that fit. She isn’t interested in them. She’s interested in any that shouldn’t be there. Sounds of wind over crystal. Sounds of spirits doing things they shouldn’t. The hum of the strands of Time in the area, and any discords in their notes.

((Reaction+Awareness to listen for anything _weird_ going on nearby that sounds Pyrian. Using Untouched Whisperer Revelation to listen to the dance of least gods and the subtle resonances of nearby Essence; paying 1wp to ignore the sound penalty. 5+5+2 Coadj+2 stunt+2 Kimmy ExSux {secrets, holds others to impossibly high standards, discerning eye}=14. 5x2+2x2+4=18 sux.))

The wind howls in her ears. She ignores it. Thunder cracks from the horizon. She ignores it. The voices of the town down in the valley echo up the slopes. She ignores them.

Ahah. Yes. Yes. There. She can hear demons. She can hear the childish chatter of a cannibal bureaucrat. And. Uh. Conversations between a man whose voice chimes, and something which isn’t a man. Something which sounds like voices echoing out of a deep, hidden place.

Eyes closed, Keris rises to her feet and darts closer to the voices in quick, short, silent bursts of motion between patches of cover, angling her hair to prevent the wind blowing in her ears and distracting her. The echoing is confusing her; making it hard to pinpoint the exact source but she gradually works her way closer to the conversation, willing them to keep talking long enough for her to find them. She cocks her head as she gets within range to hear the edges of their words, listening to the chiming of the man’s voice, the echoing hollowness of the other. She ignores the demon; that’s little more than a serf, but the ripples of power in the two conversing people... those interest her, and she focuses her attention on them.

The man’s voice has that... that unusual blend of Hellish essence which Keris only associates with the princes of the green sun. He feels slightly stronger than Keris, but only so.

((Green Sun Prince, Enlightenment 9))

The other voice is weaker than her, and tastes purely of the Principle of Hierarchy.

((Pyrian Essence, Enlightenment 6))

Her ears twitch, and her eyes would narrow if they weren’t already closed. Probably a Demon of the Second Circle, then. She edges closer, shortening the periods she spends darting from cover to cover, inching her way towards the trio until she can hear what they’re saying. The bushes practically bend out of her way to let her through; silent and reassuring. It reminds her of how the water always welcomes her whenever she dives in to swim.

((Sadly, there are no eaves around to drop on them. I’ll just have to stick with the other meaning of the word.))

They’re talking in a house on the outskirts of the town - well, it’s not really a house. It’s more of a farm cluster of buildings, with barns and stables and the like. Keris slips by the workers in the farm buildings with ease, and crawls over the roof until she can slip in through an unshuttered window. It looks like one of the servant’s bedrooms, with its narrow bedding mats.

As far as she can hear, the two of them are playing Gateway. Keris can hear the clicking of pieces as they move. They’re talking in Old Realm about... something about the nature of freedom or something, Keris isn’t really understanding that, and apparently freedom is what you do with rules or something. The man is certainly Deveh, though. The demon - called Meldu - calls him that.

Meldu, Meldu... Keris chews on a hair lock and chances a quick glimpse into her soul-library. She’s pretty sure she’s heard something about a Meldu in her lessons back before Calibration... or possibly a Melathu, but either way, if she did, it should be in her (rather sloppy) notes.

Keris recalls that Meldu is one of the souls - the Warden Soul, she thinks - of Iasestus, the Arbitrator of Doctrine. His title is the Enforcer of Thought, and he serves to ward those under his master’s dominion from incorrect ideas. An androgynous being with black and white swirled skin, and only two fingers on each hand, he thrusts his hands into the heads of those who have ideas above their station and removes them - and much else besides that. His victims are left slow and simple, lacking volition or understanding. Meldu is a great fancier of cats and can often be distracted - or placated - by the gift of a pure black or pure white feline.

As for the Reclamation, he is his master’s creature. That means he’s probably serving Iasestus here, if he hasn’t been bound.

Keris purses her lips and briefly considers going looking for a cat, but decides against it. She doesn’t really need to placate the demon about anything at the moment, and it should stay that way for as long as, uh, she doesn’t get caught spying on him and Deveh.

Their conversation is weird, and doesn’t make much sense, but they don’t seem to be doing anything that Sasi would disapprove of. She didn’t hear anything odd when she listened to the area, either - no deafeningly obvious displays of the All-Maker’s power. If Deveh doing anything like that, he’s not doing it here.

He might be doing it elsewhere, though. And she _would_ rather like to get a better look at him, and maybe a taste. Wrinkling her nose in annoyance, Keris merges further into the shade of a thick bush and settles in somewhat grudgingly to wait.

((You do know Keris can’t... uh, actually detect magic _exactly_ with her hearing? She can detect strangeness sometimes, but that’s not the same thing.))  
((That would be why she’s waiting to follow him and make sure.))  
((And making up elaborate rants in her head that are getting steadily longer and more creative the longer he spends sitting in a house and talking about freedom and rules and having a place and a duty and a role to play in somethingorother.))

Keris notices, after about half an hour, that there’s something a little... _too_ uniform about the movements of the workers at the farm. They all bend in the same way. When someone has to pick something up, they all stoop in the same way. And when they talk, they all use the same intonation and pronunciation.

It’s confusing. And _interesting_ , which after thirty minutes of ‘blah blah freedom blah blah system of order blah blah efficient blah’ is a balm to every sense she possesses, up to and including her tastebuds. Keeping half an ear on Deveh to make sure he doesn’t go anywhere she slinks over to one of the farm workers and brushes a lock of hair across the back of his neck from the cover of a tree’s foliage. Pulling it back up to her mouth, she tastes it thoughtfully, picking apart the delicate flavours and sternly warning her stomach not to give her away by rumbling.

It’s very easy for Keris to grab it. And the taste is... off. She can’t really describe how - it just tastes like a bland farm worker to her. But that’s it. It’s kind of bland. Stale. And it smells like the smell coming off everyone else on the farm. There are no... distinctive things, beyond their different farm jobs.

She mulls this over for a while. It’s... weird, yes. But Sasi had sounded concerned about... about massive giant changes. Not just a farm where people tasted sort of...

... bland. Huh. But if the people _here_ taste bland and samey... Keris hesitates, unsure of whether to check out her new suspicion or keep shadowing Deveh. Cocking an ear to his conversation again, she tries to determine whether or not it sounds like he’s going anywhere soon.

((Cog + Lore to work out the progress of the game. : D ))

Keris knows about Gateway. She’s not very good at it, but she knows about how it goes with people who are. And she can listen to how often they’re moving pieces, and how many seem to be on the board, because if they’re both fairly good players and neither seems to be annoyed, that means it’s likely that neither of them is winning or losing, and a complex game with lots of pieces in play where neither player has an edge can take _ages_ to resolve.

((2+2+2 stunt=6. 4 sux.))

The game - she thinks from her best guess - is drawing to a close. The board sounds pretty empty, and it sounds like Deveh is winning from the irritation in the voice of the Second Circle. She can’t read Deveh’s voice - it’s annoyingly calm.

Sighing miserably, she settles back in to wait for them to finish up and go somewhere or do something. She’s very nearly at the point of hopping down from her tree and going to knock on the door. That at least might stop them talking about things she doesn’t really understand or care about. But no, first she wants to see what Deveh does when he thinks nobody is watching.

It does make it a bit easier if she pretends she’s preparing to rob the place. Slipping back into the old house-thief mindset takes more effort than she expects, but the steady patience of anticipated profit helps her bide her time and wait.

It ends with a groan of frustration from the demon, and the two of them shaking hands. Then comes a rather interesting conversation.

“Well, I won,” Deveh says simply. “You will honour the terms of our agreement.”

“I will,” says Meldu. “Slender Leaf and her family will be redacted as you wagered. May I ask what goals you seek?”

“You may ask.”

There is a pause. “I merely wish to convey this information to my greater self,” Meldu half-whines.

“He knows, and if he has not told you, I shall not gainsay him,” Deveh says. “I would not offend him in such a manner, for he is one of Her souls.”

Keris goes very, very still as she tries to remember what ‘redacted’ means. Even though she’s less than sure, they’re betting the fate of a woman and her family on a game of Gateway. She’s just not sure which of them she should be mad at, or how mad she should be.

Keris... yeah, she vaguely remembers Sasi mentioning at some point in one of those long lists of ‘people who rule what’ that Slender Leaf is the leader of the Theocracy of the Jade-Souled, this breakaway area.

And ‘redacted’... ah, yes. Yes, now she remembers that word. It means... changing words in things. Like how Orabilis keeps secrets that only the Yozis can know, and lays his touch upon people who work them out and destroys anywhere they’re written down.

... but how do you redact a person? Do... do they mean redacting this Slender Leaf’s memories? Or redacting her out of... of existing? The Whispering Pyre can do that, Keris is fairly sure. Not make it so that someone never existed, but make it seem that way. If the leader of this breakaway faction suddenly wasn’t remembered by anyone... would that mean the faction would collapse?

... yeah, this sounds like something Sasi needs to know about. Keris stays coiled in the tree, listening for anything further and making plans to sneak away and send Sasi a cherub as soon as she can. First, though, she needs to know where Deveh is going.

The answer, it seems, is that he is going to meditate. Keris hears him go through to a stone-floored room in the house, strip down, and then sit on the cool stone and begin singing a prayer-mantra to the Principle of Hierarchy to himself. Meldu makes a hissing noise as he fades away into immateriality, and then the sound of his footsteps echo through the house and through the walls as he sets off towards the town.

Keris wavers for a moment. Then, as hurriedly as she can, she puts some distance between herself and the house and unpacks the Cherub Shrine.

“Sasi,” she babbles as soon as the cherub appears. “Deveh sent Maldu - Iasestus’s Warden Soul, I think? - to ‘redact’ Slender Leaf and her family. It’s going into the town now; I’m going to follow in case it’s going after her right now. Get back to me with what to do as soon as possible!”

She sends the cherub off to Boromono - barely resisting the temptation to send it to Sasi herself - all but flings the shrine back into her Domain, and sets off at a run in the direction Maldu left; her ears alert for his footsteps.

He moves slowly compared to her, and she can easily catch up with the sounds of his feet and the rustling of his long fingers through the air as he strides.

((Reaction + Subterfuge to hide from him))

He’s slow, and Keris is swift and silent and sure. She flows through the undergrowth and the trees, following him out of sight by ear and never giving him a line of sight to her. She stays back, too, wary of Pyrian mind-hands, and keeps downwind of him whenever she can. It’s not hard, given how much she can outpace him by.

((5+5+2 Coadj+2 Amulet+3 Silver Willow+1 to {going unnoticed by targets}+2 stunt+1 cover=21. 8 sux.))  
((Soooooooo))  
((I just got 10 successes on 11 dice))  
((Friggin’ super-alert demons.))

It was going fine! Right until she realised that she didn’t have a perfect sense of balance when she wasn’t running, accidentally startled a cat, the cat ran straight to the unseen demon, and then Keris heard him purr to it.

It turns out that he speaks cat. It is _very unfair_.

Keris “meeps”, dives over a bank and legs it for the nearest clump of hideable-in vegetation, where she hastily pulls her shadow over herself to look like a Tengese woman of thirty or so.

The unseen figure paces up to her, trailed by the tabby. Looks left and right. Calls out, “Come out, come out, wherever you are, lady in red.” He starts in Firetongue, but switches through several other languages.

Okay. Okay, so all it knows is that she’s a lady, and that she’s in red. Keris’s dress quietly shifts into a dark green shirt and muddy trousers, along with a heavy grey cloak. She stays quiet and still. Maybe if it finds her she can pretend she was just a mortal who was asleep? Actually wait, no, a mortal wouldn’t be able to hear it even if they were awake. Though then it might try to put its hand in her head and she’d have to cut its arm off, which would probably give the game away somewhat.

After she doesn’t come out, Meldu spends some time rustling around the bushes, and then turns on his heel and heads back towards the place Deveh was.  Keris quietly swears some more, waits until she’s certain it’s gone - and with her hearing, she is in a position to know - and finally relaxes. She shifts positions - if it comes back, she’d better not be anywhere near the same spot - and settles in the branches near the top of a largeish tree with a good view of the path. Her heart is racing. That was close.

‘Okay, in my defence,’ she says, pre-empting Dulmea, ‘that cat came out of _nowhere_.’

“Oh,” Dulmea says, archly. “I thought it was sunbathing.”

Keris’s cheeks flush. She checks the sky - late morning, shading into noon, and chews on a hair-tendril nervously. “Sasi’ll be awake by now. If she goes down to check on Boromono this morning... ach, but if she doesn’t, I won’t get anything until tonight.”

She swallows. “Well, whatever it _was_ going to do, this has thrown a stick in the spokes. It’s going to go tell Deveh what happened, so he’ll probably come back here...” She purses her lips. “And if he has the same mind-hand things as Sasi, and they’re as sensitive as my hearing, he’ll probably find where I was lying. No footprints... but maybe things my feet disturbed. Hmm. So he might be able to track me. Where can I go that touch won’t... ah. Water. Right. Or... I could let him find me. I mean, it’s not like I’m doing anything wrong.”

“Hmm,” Dulmea says. “Lady Sasimana knows when you lie, yes? And that comes from the Principle. But... perhaps you heard a demon. And you were coming here to meet him and see what he was doing. Or something like that. Not quite lying, but... misleading.”

Keris grins. “‘Sasi thought there might be trouble up here and sent me to see what was up and to meet him’. Like when I talked around Rat and she didn’t notice. Yeah, okay.” She flickers her dress back to its normal red and leans back on the branch, confident that she’ll hear them coming before they get close enough to notice her. Idly, she touches up her lip paint, and shifts the silver trimmings of her dress golden to match.

She’s much less nervous now that she has something approaching a plan. She becomes even less nervous than that when she flickers Ascending Air out and into her hands. And that means he’ll be expecting the kerises if it comes to a fight - and not the Lance she can summon through her hair. By the time she’s finished tending to her lip paint, Keris is nearly calm again, though she still fidgets slightly and relocates twice more to get a better vantage point of the path and her abandoned hiding spot. She ends up almost at ground level, in the shade between a building and a tree, about forty yards from the bushes.

It takes maybe fifteen minutes for him to show up, escorted by the unseen Meldu. From her position, she can see him for the first time. She vaguely recognises him from the Althing, but she certainly hasn’t spent any time around him.

Deveh is a stick-thin man, dressed in an almost ascetic white robe - which makes noise like it has metal plates sewn into it. His skin is incredibly pale, his hair is white despite his youth, and his eyes are a watery blue. He doesn’t turn his head to look at things nearby - Keris notices he stares like he’s nearsighted, not caring about things close by.

She considers him as he approaches her old hiding spot, perched comfortably in a sling-chair of hair in the shadow of a tree. An impish grin spreads across her face and - before she can think better of it - a casual flick of hair sends a pebble through the space Meldu’s head would occupy if he weren’t immaterial. It bounces loudly off a tree trunk and clatters away along the path.

Two heads turn to her; one visible, one unseen but not unheard. Keris waves cheerfully.

“You win,” she concedes, in Meldu’s general direction. “Though I’m not sure if getting him to help counts as cheating or not. And technically the cat noticed me, not you.”

She keeps the cheerful grin up, listening carefully for any changes in Deveh’s breathing or voice - it’s how she generally catches Sasi out, though with his weird chiming she’s not sure how well it will work on him. Still, her carefree introduction should provoke _some_ sort of reaction - she knows she’s not got much of a chance of seeing through that annoyingly calm facade he was using during the Gateway game. Her fingers itch to play - if she could listen to his song, that would help - but she doesn’t want to risk showing that much of her hand yet.

Keris strongly suspects he’s not exactly happy to see her here - although... uh, maybe that’s because... well. Um. She does sort of hang around with Naan back in Malfeas, and he doesn’t. No, he doesn’t. Not at all.

Her smile is starting to fray a little under his irked stare, and she cocks her head, vaguely considering the merits of another pebble. “No hello?” she asks. “You, uh, do know who I am, right? Or am I just confusing you?”

“Keris of Firewander,” he says softly in Old Realm. He lowers his hands slightly from the martial pose he had adopted. “Why are you here?”

It’s certainly a Malfean style he’s using, Keris thinks - one of those very precise ones which are all about a very few, heavily drilled moves.

“Maybe Joint-Shattering Shards Style,” Dulmea contributes.

“Well, Sasi gave me some advice back when everything went wrong in Matasque and Orange Blossom wasn’t there to help, and then she came along to help settle things there, and _then_ she went and helped me with some stuff in Nexus,” Keris says, vaguely aware of her mouth moving on autopilot while her mind works, “so when she asked if I’d like to come work with her here in An Teng I thought ‘why not’, since she’s a much better boss. Dunno if I like the climate so far, though it’s way nicer up here than down on the Shore Lands. I don’t think the heat likes me.”

‘Not many moves, but he’ll have them down perfect. Surprise him, then, if it comes to it.’ she concludes mentally. ‘And don’t let him start on any of them without interrupting.’

“Oh, and it’s Dulmeadokht now,” she adds out loud. “I left Firewander behind when I left Nexus the second time. I’ve grown, since then.”

“I see,” he says. “Well. I am fine here. You may tell Nemone’s scion that everything is going according to the scenario, and I am following the orders of Unquestionable Iasestus. That will be all.” His manners are curt, precise, and he accentuates the last word by flicking back his white hair.

Keris blinks. “Nemo- oh, right. Sasi. Okay, so no trouble, scenario going fine.” She counts the points off on her fingers. “Ah, last thing; how far done are you? She’ll probably want to know how close you are to finished. With... whatever it is you’re doing for the Honoured Unquestionable.” She raises a curious eyebrow.

Deveh doesn’t smile. “If the Unquestionable has not dignified her with such information, I will not gainsay his whim,” he says.

Keris huffs. “Well, you’re no fun. I’ll share my job if you will? No?” She sighs. “Fine, short and boring report it is. In that case, what’s the fastest route by river back down to the Shore Lands? I got a bit lost on the way up here.”

Deveh blinks. It’s the first emotive thing she’s seen from him. “The White Chimes runs through this valley, and I believe it merges up with a river which comes out near Steel Lotus,” he says, in a not particularly caring tone.

Keris nods. “Got it. Thanks for the report. Oh, and... to your invisible friend; my compliments on spotting me. Not many can do that. Even fewer when I’m really trying.”

Throwing them a jaunty wave, she takes to the treetops and heads off at speed, rapidly leaving them behind. She loses the grin almost as soon as she’s out of sight.

‘Yeah, okay, he’s taking orders straight from an Unquestionable, the people here are acting weird and samey, and he tried to hustle me out of here as fast as possible without even asking for an explanation. And that redaction thing. He’s doing _something_. Let’s check the townspeople, then figure out what to tell Sasi.’


	10. Chapter 10

A storm is rolling in, from the coast. Blinding white flashes of lightning are followed by painfully loud peals of thunder. They’re not here yet, but Keris can already hear them in the distance as she considers. The rain will probably be here by nightfall, and Dulmea - at least - thinks it will stay for several days.

‘I’m not keen on hanging around here in the middle of a monsoon,’ she sighs to Dulmea. ‘Too loud. I’ll take a quick look around and then head back. The rain won’t bother me as much in the water and under the trees.’

((This will be a Cog or Per + Investigation roll, depending on the approach she takes. The stunted method by which she does it will set the difficulty))  
((Crud. Hmm. Okay. Her Persuasion is better, and discrepancies in their behaviour will be more evident if she’s disrupting their routines... hmm.))

Keris doesn’t hurry, but she doesn’t waste time as she tours the village, taking to the rooftops and slinking along invisibly as she listens to the people there. She knows what urban life sounds like. She knows every nook and cranny of the things that go on in a town, both out in the open and behind locked doors and drawn curtains. Affairs, abuse, arguments, sex, sin, secrets; all the private things that people don’t want to display... they may as well be shouting them from the rooftops to her ears.

And what she can’t learn from _that_ , she can find out by getting more involved. She takes on a shadow-form - suppressing a brief urge to model it in the vein of Deveh and going for a Tengese woman a decade or two older than she actually is - and takes to the streets and storefronts. She makes a scene. She argues, harrasses, gets in the way and causes innocent but obnoxious trouble. She listens to the people’s reactions, and takes the opportunity to taste as many as possible.

Because the men on the farm tasted weird and bland, and acted weird and _blander_. And while Keris is given to understand that the Tengese up here are fairly rigid in their thinking, they’re still human. They should still react like humans. And if Deveh follows the Whispering Pyre as devoutly as he seems to, she doubts he’ll have much time for human reactions.

Keris isn’t welcome here. That’s the thing she feels as soon as she tries to blend in among them. Oh, she’s charming and spontaneous and witty and they think she’s all-right... _for a stranger_. They know she’s _not from these parts_. Maybe it’s the strange accent that they have which she can’t mimic perfectly - but there’s something about her which they seem to detect on sight, without knowing what does it.

And that’s not the only thing that’s _wrong_ about them. They don’t chat while they’re working. They just do what they have to do, and move on. They don’t gossip. They don’t tell quiet raunchy jokes. Keris sees and hears the... the unreal sight of a row of washerwoman working at the clothes in some kind of communal washing place without saying a word to each other. They don’t talk enough. They just... do what they’re meant to do.

Sometimes, though, they go up to various walls and stare at them. Keris doesn’t know what’s going on there. The walls are blank. Then there are whispered prayers to various figures - Keris recognises the Arbitrator of Doctrine among them, and strongly suspects that the Maiden of Propriety is either a Pyrian demon or the Principle herself.

This is the community. Something entirely outside Keris’ experience. She’s seen - heard, rather - the vices of the Tengese, and they’re not so unlike the Nexans. Only, you know. Much less inventive and open about things. But here? These people don’t do what they aren’t meant to do. They only do what they’re meant to. She’d need to watch them for a few more days to be sure, but she thinks this might be what’s going on.

She shudders. It seems... and she says this as someone who has seen the vistas of Hell... it seems _unnatural_. Inhuman, though admittedly that word starts to mean a lot less once you’ve spent an afternoon being massaged by neomah and stomach bottle bugs in a bath heated by dancers of living molten metal and when you yourself gave up having to breathe some time ago and can stitch your wounds together with bursts of hissing Kimberian ice-steam.

... Keris pauses for a moment, trying to recover her train of thought. What was she thinking about? Ah, yes. The town feels unnatural, and... yeah, Deveh may not be turning whole areas of land into crystal like Sasi was worried about, but he seems to be turning whole towns full of people into empty shells that serve the Hierarchy, which is arguably worse.

She vanishes between the buildings, allows herself a few minutes of being thoroughly creeped out, and then cuts towards the forest in the direction of the river Deveh mentioned. If she pushes herself and doesn’t stop for any rests, she might be able to make it back not long after dusk. And right now, she is not in the mood to stop by the Catalyst of the Red Sunrise and see how the demjen are doing. Keris wants Sasi-cuddles.

It’s somewhere mid-way down the river in the Middle Lands that Keris starts getting weepy. She’s hungry. And half-deaf from the thunder. And really quite disturbed by what she saw in the High Lands. In fact, she’s fucking creeped out.

Oh, and she thinks she’s lost too. Somehow. The river went into this swampy recessed area and now she can’t feel the current.

So she sits down, and has a bit of a cry.

She can hear Rathan crying too, inside her, and that means... means that Dulmea is probably too busy tending to him to sympathise with her. Her crying devolves to sobbing, and then takes a right turn into screaming. The storm is _loud_ and _hurts_ and her stomach is _growling_ and _painful_ and she’s creeped out and misses Sasi and...

... and she misses home. _Home_ home, back in Malfeas, back with Sasi on the island off the shore of An Teng, back _anywhere but here_. A crack of thunder splits the air, and Keris yells back at it incoherently with tears streaking her face, lashing out with her Lance in a burst of bloody lightning. It shears through half a dozen trees, which collapse, startling away a flight of birds and a couple of monkeys that were taking cover there from the storm.

It also startles out a rather angry looking clouded leopard, which reacts to the brightly-coloured intruder by pouncing at it, claws extended. But Keris is armed and hungry and tired and hungry and angry and _hungry_ , and her Lance snaps back into a guard stance as her hair surges forward, and...

((Attack vs Great Cat, Exalted pg 347.  
Physique+Melee=5+5+3 stunt+3 Wild Alleycat+1 {Unarmoured Target}+2 Adorjan ExSux=17. 7+2=9; 6 threshold sux over DV.  
Damage: 5+6+2 stunt=13 dice, 10s count twice due to PWL; 8 sux. OHK.))

... and blessed _flavour_ fills her tastebuds as the leopard hits the ground with a wet thud that she hears even through the rain.

There, uh... there isn’t very much of its head left. And as Keris draws the curtain of hair that engulfed it back, needle-white teeth glint between sodden, silky locks. Another wave moves in unconsciously as the smell of blood-meat-bone-flesh hits her - Great Makers, the _smell_ \- and Keris actually lets out a moan as it strips half the beast’s ribcage bare, her knees buckling slightly as her stomach fills.

She falls to her knees, palms touching the floor - and a new rich earthy flavour joins the rich deliciousness from her fanged and proboscis’d hair. Her palms have opened wide maws and are grazing on the matted vegetation.

((Heh. Yes, have a 3 dot stunt, and 1 Enlightened XP which can only be spent on new demon breeds made by the po for that act of gluttony.))

“Wha...” she mutters, only half registering the glorious, _glorious_ taste and the sensation of her belly filling. “I... there are...” She lifts a hand, and... and she can _feel_ the mouth in her palm. Opening it and closing it is like... like opening and closing _her_ mouth. The one on her face. Only this one is on her _hand_ , and she watches with mingled awe and horror as water streams through the twin rows of jagged, serrated teeth and a long tongue curls out to taste the rain.

“D... Dulmea?” she stutters, forgetting that her coadjutor is busy with a wailing infant deva for a moment. Well, she thinks giddily, she’s not having a breakdown anymore, so maybe Rathan has stopped crying.

Of course, she’s about to start freaking out for entirely different reasons, so maybe not. “Dulmea, are you seeing this?”

“I am, child,” Dulmea says. She sounds... perturbed. Almost taut. Keris can’t hear Rathan crying.

“... so, uh,” Keris says. “Right. I, um. I’ve taken more of the Devourer into myself. Okay. Okay.” She closes the hand-mouths, squeezes her eyes shut, and pleads for them to _stay_ closed. Wet, fleshy sounds that do not sound like they should be happening inside her body emanate from her arms, and she cracks an eye open to find her palms smooth and toothless again.

Hastily and somewhat warily, she pats her body down - avoiding her hair, which is still finishing off the leopard - and makes sure that all of her bits are still present. “Okay. Okay, and I’m not being... being eaten from the inside out or digesting bits of myself or... okay, right. Yeah. I just... I just took the bit of him that eats things. From, um. Anywhere he can touch them.”

Strangely, this does not make her feel much better. At least most of her hair is no longer festooned with ivory needle-teeth.

“I think,” Keris decides, in a rather brittle tone of voice, “that I am going to go home to Sasi. And not think about this until tomorrow. Or the day after tomorrow. Or never.”

“Child,” Dulmea says. “Perhaps it would be... ah, wise to take more care of yourself, yes. And to remember to eat properly. You have been skipping meals,” she adds, with a note of reprimand, “and when you are hungry, the serpent-beast is agitated and Rathan is more easily upset.”

There is a lack of sound which sounds a lot like someone pulling a cheeky expression would sound if they made no noise doing it. Keris isn’t sure how that makes sense, but apparently it does in her current state.

“Echo says hello, and says she feels fine,” Dulmea says wearily.

“Sorry,” says Keris sheepishly. “I’ve been in a hurry, and... uh, yeah. Sorry.” She shivers, aware of the rain shifting colder. The temperature doesn’t bother her so much when she’s underwater, but at the moment she’s out in the middle of a swamp that’s also in the middle of a monsoon. “I’ll kill something big and toss it out to the snake later, maybe that’ll make it less angry at me.” She gets up and starts glumly retracing her steps in the rough direction of what she thinks was the river. An Teng is lousy with rivers, anyway. If she keeps going long enough in a straight line she should find one she can follow downstream.

Keris can see the fires of Lotus ahead of her as she heads down from the Middle Lands into the Shore Lands. The rain is torrential, pouring down from the heavens and even from here she can hear the faint hissing and guttering of countless flames under the deluge. The thunder - fortunately - is mostly behind her now, but she’s soaked to the bone.

At least it’s washed off the blood from the leopard.

She reflexively checks her hands and hair for the fourth or fifth time, sighing in relief when she finds them free of teeth. It’s not that her hair never moved of its own accord before - sometimes she’d notice it shifting or curling and uncurling at the ends, especially when she was agitated. Just... never with so much _intent_.

Or so many _teeth_. If... if that happened while she was sleeping... while she was in bed with Sasi...

... no. No, Keris blanks out that thought before it can go any further. She’ll just... she’ll eat a lot before she goes to bed so that she’s not hungry, and maybe tie her hair back, and maybe... the snake is her instincts and emotions, right? And that’s probably what was driving it, the bit of her that was so hungry and angry, so... so she just needs to go remind it of how much she loves Sasi and why they can’t hurt her ever. And if it tries it anyway, she’ll stab it some more.

She’s still uneasy as she makes her way into the city. And leaving the river means the cold hits her again like a knife. She’s sodden and shivering by the time she arrives at Sasi’s house, and so nervous that she actually uses the front door.

It’s the housekeeper who answers - well, okay, it’s the housekeeper who’s fetched by the maid who answers - and who escorts Keris through to a changing room where a younger woman helps her dry off and get changed into a soft hemp robe. The older woman tells Keris that the mistress is out, and should be home later this evening.

Keris can hear in the woman’s voice - and more pertinently her muttered remarks to another maid outside - that the staff do not approve of the mistress’ mistress. And how the mistress might be a foreigner, but shouldn’t be carrying around so openly with another woman when she should be married by her age and should have the common good taste to not treat another woman as her bride.

((... remind me, do they know Keris’s hair is prehensile? Hmm. I think the Tengese are fairly accepting of spirit-blooded who wear the marks of their divine parents, and... well, bluntly, it’s the sort of thing that’s kind of hard to hide given that she moves it unconsciously like how normal people shift their weight or fidget unless she’s concentrating on keeping it still.))  
((Sure, let’s say they know if you want))

She’s still freaked out enough that the badly-hidden disapproval mostly washes over her, and she manages little more than a shaken nod and a few flinches when the woman gets too close to her hair. As soon as it’s dry, she pulls it close and wraps it around herself to keep it still and out of the way, before retiring to Sasi’s room with a basket of apples to wait for her return and determine exactly how her newfound gift works.

((Heh. How does my body work - PHYSIQUE + OCCULT!))  
((Heh. “Powers of the Yozis” probably falls under Malfean Scholar. 5+3+3=11. 6 sux. Yaaaay!))

Keris goes through about half the apples in the basket, which calms her down somewhat. It also teaches her that she can now make mouths appear... pretty much anywhere on her body, it seems. Including places that mouths are _definitely not supposed to go_. She isn’t going to forget the sight of her face splitting apart lengthways down the bridge of her nose to reveal a gaping maw with a long, prehensile tongue anytime soon, though not for lack of effort.

((metagaos y u so body horror))

It appears - Keris also discovers - that her stomach capacity has not increased from this strange shifting in her form. The leopard has left her feeling stuffed, and now the apples on top of it leave her feeling quite ill.

Screwing up her face in distaste, she curls up on Sasi’s bed, burying her face in the pillows and inhaling the scent of her perfumes and the other scents that surround her lack of any natural odour.

Sinking into meditation, Keris appears in Dulmea’s chamber and only pulls back from hurling herself into the once-angyalka’s hair by Rathan’s protest and a last-minute flicker of paranoia.

Pulling back, she seats herself in formal seiza at the table and begins playing. Jangling chords echo her frayed nerves, and a dull undertone in a leaden minor key follows her gnawing worry and unease.

There’s a warm and slightly damp presence behind her, as Dulmea steps up to wrap her hair around her shoulders in an embrace. Carefully and with a slight grunt of exertion, Dulmea places Rathan in Keris’ lap, who promptly shifts around so his head is resting on her breasts and seemingly goes to sleep.

“Speak, child,” Dulmea says.

Keris feels her face curve up into a reluctant smile as Rathan snuggles closer, making little half-burble-half-snoring noises and clutching at her dress with his tiny hands. Dulmea nods in approval as her melody lifts somewhat, and Keris listens to it in a distracted sort of way as she tries to sort her thoughts out.

“... the Devourer...” she starts, hesitantly, “... he eats everything. Even himself, but especially anything that comes across him. And... these...” she takes one hand away from the strands of Time for a moment to wave it and open a shark-toothed mouth in it in demonstration, “... these haven’t shown any more signs of, you know, acting on their own. So I’m pretty sure that the thing with the leopard was just because I was hungry and tired and angry and scared and... and it was just like stabbing at something on instinct, like I’d do anyway.”

She pauses, her hair rustling uneasily and her tune dipping again. “But... I’m still scared of what _might_ happen. What if I get hungry at night and roll over and Sasi’s right there? Or what if I take more of him into myself without realising - more of his hunger?”

Dulmea sighs. “Perhaps, child,” she says, “you know some of the fear I have when you take more of the Silent Wind into yourself.”

Keris ducks her head apologetically. “... I hadn’t really thought about how I’ve been changing before,” she admits. “It was never so... it was always sort of like I was already. Just... more. Well, no, not the Great Mother, but... one of the first things you ever said to me was that the Silent Wind came naturally to me. And her gifts _seem_ natural, they’re... they’re things I did anyway, mostly. Running and fighting and stealing and stuff.”

She wrinkles her nose. “And the Great Mother’s gifts made me more... posh, and like Sasi, and she’s fine with being posh. The poisons just made me think of you. But... I’ve been hungry before, sure. I’ve been hungry a _lot_ before. But never enough to rip a leopard apart and bite its head off. This just felt so much more... more different. More not-me.”

She leans into Dulmea’s touch. “Tell me everything’s going to be okay?” she asks, a note of vulnerability in her voice. “I know you can’t say that and know it, but I’ll feel better if I hear it from you.”

“Child,” Dulmea says, “it will be fine. You are the inheritor of the powers of the All-Creators. You do not poison all you touch, even though the Great Mother is made of terrible venoms. I... I am sure that you will not devour all you touch. After all, did you not suffer sensory overload the first time you ate with his talents, yes? But that has not happened since then. Maybe it was just your powers becoming manifest for the first time, before you learned to control them.”

Keris blinks, considering that for a moment, and relaxes by several more degrees as a weight seems to lift off her shoulders. “That... that’s a good point,” she admits, and lets out a quiet laugh of dizzy relief. “That’s a really good point. I hadn’t thought of it like that. I, um... I think I’ll still make sure to eat enough that I’m not hungry, just in case, but... yeah.”

She smiles up at Dulmea and turns to hug her. “See? Told you you’d make me feel better. You’re cleverer than I am about this sort of thing.” Rathan shifts and makes a happy noise in her lap, and she tickles him fondly.

“Not just now, little one. Sasi’ll be coming to wake me up soon. I’ll play with you tonight, okay?”

Rathan makes a bubbling noise, and his hair reaches out, randomly plucking at the instrument. He giggles at the... uh, racket.

Keris snorts quietly. “Oh, sweetheart. No, come on, I’ll show you how. Like this.” She weaves her hair around his own and gently guides him to pluck the harp strings in a simple falling procession, then sets him back on the highest note. “Now you try! Just like I showed you.”

He is rather more preoccupied at trying to grab at her hair and put it in his mouth.

Rolling her eyes as another smile tugs at her mouth, Keris settles in to try and direct her son towards the music as much as possible, rather than towards putting things in her mouth. He does seem to like the twanging notes of the guqin more than the harp - though that might just be because he can get a proper grip on it with his chubby fingers and prod her knee with it - but he’s still mostly at the stage of plucking strings at random and butting his head into her chin by the time Keris starts to drift awake again.

Shaking her head, Keris looks to the left and notices that Sasi is at her desk, working. She hears Keris moves and turns to face her.

“You’re back, dear one,” Sasi says. She smiles. “You could have asked the housekeeper for a meditation mat, you know.”

Keris squeaks and shifts away a little. “Ah! Uh... yes. Um. I didn’t think to. I was a bit... terrified, when I got back.” She chews her lip. “I talked to Dulmea about it and I’m not as... but, uh, you should probably know about it anyway. And also what I found out in the High Lands.”

Sasi’s eyes open wide, and she carefully goes and shuts the shutters and the doors, letting her shadow fall off her and losing the more Tengese look she uses for this identity. She sits beside Keris. “Terrified?” she asks quietly, stroking her hair.

Keris tenses up, repeats Dulmea’s advice to herself, and forcefully settles herself again. “I took more... I mean, there was a leopard, and it...” She stops. “... actually, it’s probably easier to show you.”

A strand of hair sweeps out to hook the fruit basket, and Keris plucks an apple out of it. Laying it flat on her hand, she shows it to Sasi, who regards it with a raised eyebrow.

And then Keris’s palm splits open under it, and devours half of it in one bite. A proboscis-tipped hair tendril stabs into the remaining half, and it dries up in front of their eyes as the juice is sucked out in one smooth motion.

Keris shivers a little. Not only does that still look really strange, but she’s only digested a little of what she ate, and her stomach is still uncomfortably full.

“... there was a monsoon,” she says, keeping her eyes on her palm and the still-open mouth there. “It was pouring, and there was thunder, and I’d got lost and was cold and tired and my ears hurt and I was a bit freaked out by what I’d seen in the High Lands. And I was really, really hungry. And when the leopard jumped out at me, my hair just... lashed out on its own. Bit its head clean off.”

She shivers again. “Dulmea says... says that I took the Great Mother’s poisons into myself, and I don’t poison everything I touch, so there’s no reason to think I’ll devour everything I touch either. She says it was probably just, you know, the shock of the first time. Like when my taste expanded and I got overwhelmed and collapsed. But... I was really scared for a while that if... that while I was sleeping with you, maybe something would happen.”

“Oh, Keris,” Sasi says, brushing Keris’ hair with her fingers. “I am fairly sure I am less scary than a leopard.” She smiles. “At least when we’re in bed. As for the rest, I must admit that the Great Maw has never been something which has held an allure to me, and I haven’t studied his lore as much.”

Keris leans into her gratefully, snuggling happily. “I guess there _are_ some positives, now that you mention it,” she murmurs, grinning slightly. “I have that many more tongues now, for a start.”

She blinks, remembering the purpose she’d left for in the first place. “Oh. But, uh, before that, I should probably tell you about the High Lands. Because... you know how you were worried that Deveh was going overboard up there? I’m pretty sure he is.”

Sasi manages to pale even more. It’s quite a challenge for her. “Oh my,” she says.

Quickly and succinctly, pausing now and then to answer Sasi’s questions and elaborate on points in more detail, Keris outlines what she saw and heard in the High Lands. She starts with Meldu’s presence and the price of their game of Gateway, then moves onto the blandness of the farm hands and the way the townspeople had been... weird and unnatural, and had recognised her as an outsider and prayed to the souls of the Whispering Pyre, and had been hallucinating or something.

“They didn’t know I was there at first, but Meldu noticed me while I was stalking him - he can talk to cats, which I didn’t know or I wouldn’t have been... anyway.” She moves on quickly, preferring to forget that little embarrassment.

“He went and got Deveh when he couldn’t find me at first, and I think _he_ wrote me off as an idiot who hadn’t noticed anything off. He seemed really eager to get rid of me, though. Didn’t ask any questions, just said everything was fine and told me to fuck off.” Keris pauses, considering her audience. “In, uh, politer language. But that was basically the gist of it. He wouldn’t tell me what he was doing for the Unquestionable when I acted curious, either.”

Sasi pinches her brow. “Let me refer to my books,” she says, rising and beginning to search through a slim book bound in white leather. When Keris peeks over her shoulder, the pages appear blank. “Meldu is the Enforcer of Thought, the Warden Soul of the Arbitrator of Doctrine,” Sasi says. “I presume the redaction he refers to is the capacity of the Enforcer to remove the capacity to have undesired thoughts - and make all other thoughts harder.”

“Slender Leaf...” Keris’s brow wrinkles. “... I know that name, but I can’t remember where from. I mean, I’m pretty sure she’s important, but I think I forget exactly who she is.”

“Slender Leaf is the matriarch of the Theocracy of the Jade Souled,” Sasi says patiently. “The territory is her land, and her daughters’ husbands hold most of the titles of nobility.”

“Ah!” Keris snaps her fingers. “The ones who worship the Dragon-Blooded, now I remember.” She hums. “So... is it good or bad that Deveh is altering her mind? We’re against the Dragonblooded, aren’t we?”

Sasi shakes her head. “I don’t know what he is up to - and what the Unquestionable is playing at,” she says. “It’s possible that he just picked that location for its isolation from much of An Teng, but... I don’t know. He’s up to something. I just don’t know what.”

“He’s taking orders straight from an Unquestionable,” Keris considers. “Which I guess means we really need another Unquestionable to deal with the problem? The Shashalme, the Blood Moon and General Madelrada are all interested in An Teng, should we just inform them that Unquestionable Iasestus is trying to take over the High Lands?”

Sasi closes her book with a snap. “That may well just be the best option available,” she says. “If they come into conflict about such things - well, it will be marked in the Althing as a conflict and it can be mediated.” She winces. “I really would rather not be used as a pawn in a shadow war between Unquestionable ones.”

Keris purses her lips. “That doesn’t sound fun, no. How do we get a message to them? A summoned demon? Or would one of us have to go back in person? If I pray to the Shashalme they’ll probably hear me, if I have a bit of setup time and a sacrifice.”

Sasi smiles. “I was going to send an Infallible Messenger,” she says teasingly.

Keris blinks. “That works across the Desert?” she asks in surprise. “Huh.”

“It takes five days,” she says, “but yes.”

Keris nods. “I guess I should inform the Shashalme?” she hazards. “Since I’m the one they spoke to first...” She wrinkles her nose as a thought occurs. “Urgh. Deveh’s going to know it was us who informed them, isn’t he?”

“Likely, yes,” Sasi agrees. “The question is whether we can afford to ignore him and his actions.”

A rather worrying suspicion forms in Keris’s mind. She opens her mouth, closes it, opens it again and hesitates. “Um,” she says. “When you say ignore... what would _not_ ignoring him look like, exactly?”

“Well, we’d inform the other Unquestionable and risk being dragged into a proxy war - or worse, having to help him,” she adds darkly.

Keris relaxes. “Right. Got it.” She hums thoughtfully. “It’s a bit like... ugh,” her hair twitches in annoyance, “like the petty little gang wars from Nexus, on a much larger stage. Grabbing territory, marking streets as theirs or yours, but staying low-key enough that the guards didn’t take notice and do something about it. Which... huh.”

She chews a lock of hair thoughtfully, switching halfway through to gnawing on her bottom lip with a set of molars from between the strands. “... which is a thought, actually. If we assume he wasn’t fooled by me laughing it off, he’s probably thinking the same sort of thing right now - only he’s such a mule for the Hierarchy that he’ll probably tell Iastestus as soon as he thinks we’re onto him, because telling his boss is in the rules or something. Yes?”

Sasi sighs. “Yes, no doubt he’ll be running off to Unquestionable Iasestus to tell the respected one that I’m sending you to spy on him, or something.”

“... you sort of did send me to spy on him, though,” Keris points out, amused.

Sasi flaps her hand. “Details, details.”

Keris giggles. “Well, with that all heard, how about you work out what these Messengers are going to say, and then we can send them, eat supper, and retire to work out what I can do with so many new tongues to play with?”

Sasi coughs. “I... uh, ate while you were meditating,” she says. “And also washed, after the sacrifice I carried out for the cult. There was quite a bit of blood.”

Keris winces. “Ah. Well...” she glances down at her stomach, “... actually, I’m probably full enough that I won’t get hungry during the night.” She grins. “So we can skip that step! Excellent.”

Sasi smiles. “I suppose composing the messages can wait until the morning. I should sleep on them, anyway.”

Keris arches her eyebrows flirtatiously. “Well, in that case...” She sprawls back on the bed, spread out invitingly. “Come help me experiment.”

“Experimentation?” Sasi says archly. “Shall I prepare the workspace for the essence flow calculations?”

Keris responds, quite maturely, by sticking her tongues out. Several of them.

Conversation gets somewhat sparse after that.

Some considerable time later, Keris fades into awareness on one of her moss-beds in what seems to be the lake. Yawning and dripping slightly, she makes her way up to the surface and into Dulmea’s chambers, where Echo is dangling a ribbon just out of Rathan’s reach and giggling silently.

“Hey!” Keris snaps, frowning. “What’s going on? Echo! Stop that!”

Echo flutters her eyelids at her mother-or-possibly-big sister, making it entirely clear that it’s just fun and they’re playing together.

Keris gives her a sceptical look and turns to Dulmea. “Has she been behaving?” Taking in Dulmea’s expression, she revises this to “Okay, has she been behaving worse than usual?”

Dulmea looks out the window. “Well, she covered that building in ribbons,” she says, “but now she seems to be alternating between playing with Rathan, and...” there is a frustrated wail from the baby, “... pestering him. He likes the attention for a while. Then he gets... tetchy.”

The baby in question manages rolls over onto all fours, and somewhat sulkily crawls over to Keris, who sweeps him up in a cradle of hair. She raps Echo on the nose, which doesn’t result in much more than a skinned knuckle and a stuck-out tongue, and frowns. “No being mean to your little bro... uh, neph- sou... no being mean to Rathan,” she orders. “If he looks like he’s going to start crying, stop pestering him, okay?”

Echo seems to consider this, and Keris decides to sweeten the pot. “I have a special job you can come and help me with if you promise,” she adds. “But only if you promise. Extra-special no-breaking for-real promise.”

Echo works her mouth helplessly, pouting in the _sheer unfairness_ that Keris would deny her pretty rain for dancing in.

“If you want him to make it rain, try getting him to do it by making him happy,” Keris suggests wryly. “You learnt quickly, didn’t you? I bet if you taught him what the... uh... sign-word for rain is, and then gave him pretty things when he made it rain, he’d be happy to do it whenever you wanted.”

She glances down at Rathan, who seems to be trying to put his harp lessons to use on her hair. “ _He_ certainly seems to agree that the rain is pretty. And this way you wouldn’t make him cry all the time. Loudly.”

“So?” Keris asks. “Are you coming with me on this special job?”

Echo scuffs her feet on the ground, caught in agonising indecision.

“I might be convinced to get you some ribbons from the market in Lotus,” Keris mentions offhandedly. “Some of the really pretty ones made of silk with the gold-thread patterns on them.”

Echo suddenly clamps her hands to her eyes, and turns her back on Keris. She seems actually upset, to the extent that her body language is hard to read.

Keris blinks, bewildered. “Uh? Um... I mean, yours are prettier, but you seemed to like copying my dress.” She crouches down to get closer to Echo’s level. “Come on, sweetie, I’m just asking you to stop poking at your little brother. Is something else wrong?”

Between silent shaking shudders, Echo manages to gesture out that it’s not much use if she has pretty ribbons if she can’t even wear them without them falling apart and Rathan gets to sit in Dulmea’s lap all the time.

Keris purses her lips, considering that. “... okay,” she decides. “That _is_ a good point. And you’re right, it’s not very fair. So how about...”

She reaches up to her throat and plucks off the thumbnail-sized gem that rests there. Her dress evaporates as she removes it, falling apart into shreds of red silk and gold that vanish before they touch the floor.

“Here you go,” Keris coaxes, offering the Amulet. “You don’t break everything you touch, do you? You’ve played with my Lance before now. And I’m pretty sure you played with some of the stuff I took from Yamal’s tomb before the snake stole it all. Artifacts are too strong for you to damage.”

Echo half turns, and Keris gives her an encouraging smile, the Infinite Resplendence Amulet sitting in her outstretched hand. “You can have this for tonight. And I’ll need it back in the morning, but I’ll see about getting you some pretty ribbons with jade woven into them, or something else that you can wear without it falling apart on you. Does that sound good?”

Echo gives Keris a flying tackle-hug, wrapping her little arms around Keris’ neck as she all-but-shouts her happiness in every gesture she makes. It’s very painful for the now-undressed Keris, but she endures her sister-daughter’s affection.

“Ow, ow... yes, okay... okay, be careful of Rathan, he’s not... gah! Not my chest... yes, there you go...” Keris eventually gets Echo situated hugging most of her hair than her skin, and is rather glad as her healing kicks in and the abrasions and gashes close with little wisps of icy steam. “Okay, you play with that as we go, okay? We’re going to talk to the snake.”

Echo and Dulmea both look at her sharply at that. Rathan also looks up, though in his case it seems more to be because everyone else is doing it than because he understood what she said.

“Just to talk, this time,” Keris says quickly. “And I’m taking it a gift. I think we still have some of the gold Sasi transmuted left over? I’ll throw that over the wall first. Echo, your big girl job is to tell me when it’s coming out, okay? And Rathan,” she tickles him, “if it gets annoyed again, you can make it start raining so we can run away from it. Alright?”

Echo does a pirouette, and around her an _excessively_ frilly white dress forms, covered in ribbons and loops and rubies which just coincidentally look like blood splatters. She curtseys elaborately to Keris. Looking up, Keris can see that there appear to be hordes of Echo’s little girl constructs gathering, and staring at her.

Echo smugly curtseys to them, too.

“I suspect I’m going to regret this later,” Keris mumbles, but can’t help smiling. “You look very pretty,” she assures Echo. “Once we’ve sorted out everything that’s going on with Deveh, I’ll have to let you out where Sasi can see how good you look.”

Nodding to Dulmea, she stands and stretches. “I’ll try not to break any more of the city this time,” she promises.

Dulmea sighs. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, child,” she advises. “That goes for you too, Echo.”

Keris grins. “That’s why I said I’ll _try_ ,” she points out, and transfers Rathan to her arms. “Alright Echo, let’s go!”

The run to the edge of the Domain is made... slightly weirder by the whispering gale of Echo’s little-girl serfs - Keris really needs to figure out what they’re called - who follow them. She shrugs. They’ll probably scatter when the snake comes out, and if they don’t... well, more things to distract it if it gets angry again are hardly a bad thing.

She’s pretty sure Echo is intentionally posing for them every street or so, though.

Past the final wall is an opaque region of mist and fog, just like last time. Keris stands nude atop the marble crenellations and stares into the white expanse.

“Is it close?” she asks Echo in a whisper. “Is it listening?”

Echo tilts her head, apparently listening. She purses her lips, and then makes her dress light up with glowing radiant pure white sunlight. Then she nods. Now it’s listening, she smiles.

Keris lets out a soft huff of laughter, and turns back to the fog.

“The library said you have a name,” she calls. “And that means you’re more than just an animal. So I’m here to talk.” She swipes a fanged thumb through one of the half-healed gashes Echo left on her ribs, and smears the blood across the thin rod of gold.

“Pekhijira,” she calls, and tosses the trinket out into the mist, putting enough force behind it for it to sail out of sight into the shifting banks of fog. “Come on out and listen.”

Something roars in the mists. It’s very loud. Behind her, Keris hears countless little girls scattering and fleeing.

Echo gulps. She thinks it heard them.

Keris flinches, but holds her ground, bringing Rathan up to cuddle into her neck and stroking his hair to soothe him. “Still angry, then,” she calls. “About last time? Or about the plate? Because I’m right there with you on the second one. We’re getting that back, next time we’re in Nexus. Count on it.”

There’s a slithering, scraping sound, and a looming shape in the fog. It doesn’t extend its head from the smokes and mists, but Keris can sort of... feel where it is.

Echo essays a small wave at it.

“... and as for last time...” she continues, at a more normal volume, “... well, I’m still not exactly happy about that, but I guess you pretty much won our scrap over them, so... fair’s fair. I won’t try that again.”

A low and somewhat smug-sounding rumble is her answer to this, which earns a scowl and some hair-twitching. “Yeah yeah, laugh it up. Anyway, that wasn’t what I wanted to talk about. The leopard, earlier today. That was you, right?”

The serpent only hisses at her. She isn’t sure if it understands her.

Keris bites her lip, and decides on another tactic. “Okay, if words aren’t working so well...” It’s one of her souls, right? The seat of her emotions, or something. Well then...

She closes her eyes and remembers the leopard. Remembers the terror and dread over the same thing happening to Sasi. She lets that slide into thoughts of Sasi, into the adoration so intense it feels like it’s going to burst out of her chest.

“No hurting Sasi,” she says firmly, focusing on _determination_ , on _not letting that happen_. “We agreed on that? Not even on instinct.”

The creature does something she hasn’t seen it do before. It slinks out of the mist, a wagon-train sized creature of feathers and scales and teeth, and encircles her.

Uh oh, mimes Echo.

But it doesn’t attack. It’s like a living wall around her, and its big, almost-cat-like face looks down at her, eyes narrowed. It hisses at her, but softer. Almost lasciviously.

“Um,” says Keris, her eyes widening as she takes in the sheer _size_ of the thing. She hadn’t got a good look at it last time - not much more than the face and the fangs. With the whole thing coiled around her... it’s breathtaking.

It’s also a little intimidating, especially when Keris rather belatedly realises that if it’s plugged into her instincts, then thinking about Sasi may not have been the best idea.

“Um,” she says. “Okay then. As long as we’re, uh, agreed on that?” She takes a half step back into something big and hard that chimes faintly. Its tail, she realises after a second. It must be a rattlesnake of sorts... no, wait, there are tiny fins lining the scales. They’re what’s making the chiming noise as they knock together.

“Echo,” Keris hisses. “Call one of your wind-girls. Now. Get her to take Rathan back to Dulmea.”

Echo strongly suggests that isn’t going to work, with a wide gesture showing that her friends have all run away already.

Keris curses inwardly. Maybe bringing Rathan wasn’t such a good idea. Then again... Rathan and Echo may be part of why it seems to be being careful. Still, leading it away from, uh, _amorous_ thoughts is probably a good idea.

Keris looks up at the huge, cat-like, serpentine face, and extends a careful hand in both invitation and caution. She bounces Rathan a few times, feeling the weight of him - big, but still a patchwork infant of flesh and pearl and ice and rock. He follows the line of her arm and looks up at green-burning eyes with the wobbly focus of a baby, and Keris concentrates _very hard_ on thinking of him and Echo and Dulmea, and Piu and Shan and Yelm. Of having a family.

((Roll Valour and then roll Compassion separately))  
((Valour 3. Fail.  
Compassion 3. Uh. 3 sux. Welp.))  
((Um. Okay. So... uh, Keris is feeling both very scared and very compassionate))  
((... her po may be confused))  
((That sounds fairly accurate, actually.))  
((Heh. It’s compassionate about them and scared for them.))

Her hand trembles - actually, all of her trembles - but Pekhijira’s head dips until she can reach out and rest her hand on the smooth silver of its mouth. Its eyes flicker, focusing on Rathan - and on Echo, Keris realises in surprise, who has hopped the wall of its body and is clinging to her hair, still in her pretty white dress. The feathered coils contract around them protectively, and its vast, razor-pinioned wings overlap to shield them from the sky in a silver box. Within the small, shielded space, the only lights are the twin pyres of green light, gleaming off silver scales.

Hun and po stare for a time, silently communicating; the girl trembling and tense, the serpent protective and paranoid. Their younger souls watch, quiet and quelled by their seniors for once.

Slowly, by degrees, the two of them calm.

“... so,” Keris whispers shakily, after what could be minutes or hours. It’s the first thing she’s said aloud for some time, but it’s the end of a conversation. “We’ll look after them. And someday have our own, in the outside world.”

A rumbling purr-hiss.

“Yours as well as mine. Ours.”

The acidic eyes blink once, slowly, and the wings draw back, letting in the light of the red moon once more. Slowly, the living wall around them uncoils, and Pekhijira retreats back into the fog. It doesn’t look back.

“... and that,” Keris breathes, relaxing only by degrees once the looming shape has vanished, “is more than enough for one night, I think. Come on, you two. Let’s go back home.”

Rathan burrows his head deep in her chest. “Ma-ma,” he mutters, trying to cling onto the bare skin. “Ma ma!”

Echo is posing triumphantly like she drove it off herself. Possibly with her very, very, even frillier than last time Keris looked, dress.

Swinging Rathan up and pulling Echo into a hair-hug, Keris kisses him on the forehead and brushes her hand across Echo’s cheek. “Your mama,” she whispers to him. “Yes I am. Well done, both of you.”

Echo pats Keris on the hand, thanking her for the assistance she provided in her great victory.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New hack introduced: [“Enlightenment”](http://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/3130124/). Objective measure of metaphysical power from 0-10.  
> Unenlightened mortals are 0, Enlightened mortals are 1, Spirit-blooded are 1-4, Dragonblooded are 2-6, Celestial Exalted are 6-9, Solaroids are 7-10.  
> Spirits equivalent to the First Circle are generally 2-4, Second Circle are 5-7, Third Circle are 8-9 and Incarnae and Fetich souls are 10. Primordials are Enlightenment N/A.  
> En 1 gives active Essence perception and usage, En 4 required for Emerald Sorcery, En 7 allows Sapphire and En 10 is needed for Adamant.

When Keris wakes the next morning, the bed is empty. A sound of a torrential downpour hammers outside, water coursing off the roofs and thundering into the cobbles of the roads. She can even hear the hammering water against the river and the ocean.

The sound of a scritching pen under the rain is almost inaudible.

She lets out a strangled moan, rolls over and pulls a pillow over her head. When this fails to help matters, her hair snakes out from under the muffling shield to grab every other pillow within range and add them to the pile.

Under four layers of cushion and with hair-plugs sealing her ears shut, the noise is somewhat more tolerable. Somewhat.

It’s nearly pitch dark even before she covers over her eyes. The shutters are bolted and the curtains are drawn and no lamps are on. Keris can smell that Sasi is in the room, and smell the wet and dry ink on all the documents she’s been working on. Sasi doesn’t smell like she’s washed since their evening or that she’s slept in the bed - she must have got out of bed and started working as soon as Keris fell asleep.

“Good morning,” Sasi says, without turning from the desk she’s sitting at. She’s not holding a pen - her pyrian magic is inking the pages directly. Keris can hear them float and flutter through the air like origami cranes.

Keris replies with another inarticulate moan, and squirms upright, rearranging her pillow to form a pair of oversized earmuffs pressed tight against her head.

“How d’you turn the rain off?” she grumbles.

“I don’t,” Sasi says, ink scritching away and paper swirling. “It’s useful.” She sighs and rises, sitting down with Keris. “I suppose you didn’t get monsoons like this in the East?” she asks.

“Loud,” Keris complains. “Hurts.” Even through the earmuffs, the sound is giving her a headache. Something approaching a rational thought rises through the hazy just-woken-up-with-a-massive-headache blur, and she blinks at Sasi blearily. “Downstairs?” she asks. “Quieter in the cellar.”

“I’m working,” Sasi says. “I need to analyse the documents I recovered this morning on shipping and trade.”

“... can’t do that downstairs?”

“I will come down when I’ve finished this,” she says. She smiles. “You seem to have taken my normal role as the one bad-tempered in the morning.”

Keris pouts at her, in no state to appreciate the humour of the situation. Reluctantly relinquishing the pillows, she redoubles the thickness of hair covering her ears and makes a speedy retreat to the hidden cellars under the house.

“ _Ohhhh_ yes,” she sighs, as soon as the trapdoor closes up above her again. “Oh, wow. That... that’s so much better. _So_ much better, seriously. Ungh. Dulmea, remind me to make earplug-serfs for when I don’t want to hear anything. Or get Sasi to summon a couple of those sound-eating beetles from the City. Or something.”

She pauses. “Huh. Actually, speaking of serfs, how’s my little mavaroska doing?” She looks around, trying to recall which room she left him in. “Firisutu? Where are you? Has Sasi been poking you to see how you work?”

Keris eventually finds that... um. Well.

Sasi is probably not going to be happy that this little demon has become the richest of his kind. Which admittedly isn’t much of a challenge, but he’s built a nest out of gold bars and silver ingots. And has incorporated some rather expensive-looking jewelry into his body.

... well, uh. At least he doesn’t smell as bad anymore, she supposes. He seems to have worked a few of the flowers she left into himself as well, though they’re wilting.

He’s taken on form, too. He’s not a skull-hairball in a pile of moving bits anymore, or even a rough approximation of an ape-like form. He looks... he looks like a monkey. Like the animal his skull came from.

Curious, she moves over and examines the nest he’s built, careful not to disturb the careful positioning of its various components.  It seems to be mostly a tower of blocks and ingots, although there’s a strange tangled web of cobwebs and hair in the centre which cradles a carefully gnawed stone.

((... what actual roll would it be to decipher a mavaroska-nest?))  
((Hmm. Cog + Survival, maybe?))  
((2+3+2 stunt=7. Hah, wow. 6 successes. Keris can SEE THE CODE. Or, uh. Pattern-map-thing.))

Her eyes wander over the precise lines of the arrangement, and Keris blinks as she notices a sort of pattern to it. If she turns her head a bit and squints... yes, she realises. It’s... not a map, exactly, but she can tell that the central arrangement of blocks is meant to represent Sasi’s house, and... yeah, she can see little hints to some of the nearby neighbourhood as well. She raises her eyebrows, glancing at its creator.

“Clever boy! Did you do this on purpose?” she asks, impressed. “Map out the neighbourhood like this? How do you even know what’s around here; you barely saw any of it coming in and you haven’t been outside since.” She pauses. “Uh, have you?”

The ape-creature purrs, rubbing his cheek against Keris’ leg.

((... hah. And I was considering how to get Keris into other forms of artwork. :V))

She laughs quietly and pets him. “Now I wish I’d had more time to look at the ones you made back up in An Teng.” Glancing around, she takes in the materials in the cellar and her Domain. “Well... it’ll be a while until Sasi comes down, so why don’t I try doing one as well? Hmm... now what should I... ah!”

When Sasi descends the stairs several hours later, she’s greeted by the sounds of an ongoing argument. Or at least, half an argument, plus agitated chittering.

“I don’t care if you want it! I saw it first, and I need it for the tooth!”

Angry squeaks.

“What, you’re upset you didn’t find it? Well that’s your own fault for not looking under the pile! Anyway, you still have all the gold bits, and I need the silver!”

A growl, and a clacking sound.

“Oh, now you’re just being petty.”

Looking apprehensively into the room, Sasi is greeted by a sulking mavaroksa sitting in a very expensive nest, and Keris animatedly bending some silver wire into shape and arranging it on the floor...

... where a monster is coiled.

Wait, no. Sasi recovers from the heart-stopping moment of terror as she realises it’s not an _actual_ monster. It’s made up of _silver_ ; coins and bars and wire and even sand, arranged in a depiction of a huge feathered serpent with spread wings; easily twice the length of Keris herself, its head turned towards the door. Two emeralds form the glittering eyes of a catlike face behind curving fangs, and the pinions around its neck are fluffed out in warning.

((Physique 5+Expression 5+2 stunt+5 Kimmy ExSux {beauty, disturbing art}=12. 9+5= _14 successes hahaha what_ for Keris’s impromptu Pekhijira-mosaic.))

“Uh,” Sasi says, leaning heavily against the wall and putting away the blue-jade hair-thin knife which had appeared out from under her sleeve, “Keris. What are you doing?”

Keris looks up happily. “Making art! You know how Firisutu makes those little nests all over the place? They’re like maps! I think so, anyway. Well, not exactly maps, but if you read them right you can figure stuff out about what’s nearby. So I decided to make one, and I guess I sort of got a bit...” she looks around at the huge mosaic, “... uh, carried away? It’s the serpent from my Domain, the one that stole all the stuff from my Tomb. My po, I guess. My library says its name is Pekhijira. We, uh... talked, last night. Well, I talked. It sort of... hissed.”

She cocks her head, giving her work a critical once-over. “I think it looks pretty close-to-life. Do you like it?”

Sasi adjusts her position, and examines it from several angles. “So this is the... snake you refer to,” she says thoughtfully. “Which All-Makers does it partake of?”

Keris purses her lips thoughtfully. “Probably... hmm. Well. My Domain is a city neighbourhood, I think I said? Like Nexus, a bit. Outside the outer wall there’s just... fog, and mist, and then a hurricane wall that you can’t get past. It lives there. So... maybe Kimbery, but it’s not caustic or bright-coloured like her fogs. Just white and cold and impossible to see through. It likes to hide.”

“Interesting,” Sasi says. She pauses. “Let me just consider what I’ll do if I have to leave the money in place,” she says, drily. “Keris, dear, that is quite a bit of my operating funds.”

Keris blushes. “Uh. Sorry. I’ll clean it up if you want?”

“Oh, it’s beautiful - and quite wonderful,” Sasi says admiringly. “It did scare me and...” she trails off. “Keris, dear, she says, almost innocently and idly.

“Uh huh?”

“... there’s no risk of it coming to life, is there? Have you been playing with making serfs again?”

“Nnnnnnooo?” Keris tries experimentally. “Well, not this one, anyway. I usually have to kiss life into them before I do that, anyway. I mean, I could _try_ , but the last time I made a serf without really having anything in mind for what I wanted it to be...”

She glances over at the mavaroska.

“... well, uh, it sort of turned up with a couple of surprises in what it could do. I didn’t know that his nests were maps until today, and I’m still not sure how he’s doing that without having seen the bits of the neighbourhood he’s mapping.”

“It’s a serf,” Sasi says. “Presumably it can dematerialise.” She stares at him, closing her eyes - and yet somehow still staring. “Yes. It can.”

There is an uncomfortable pause.

“... ah,” says Keris after several seconds. “Um. Okay, if that had occurred to me _before_ I left, I swear I would have told him to stay in the cellar and not go wandering off to who-knows-where.”

Sasi sits, crossing her legs. She’s still mussed, still unwashed, and Keris doesn’t think she’s slept at all. “So, as it stands, I have a few things I need to discuss with you.”

Keris pats the last piece of wire into place and scoots closer to Sasi, listening attentively.

“This morning, when you were asleep, I stole some documents from a factor of the Gleaming Triangle - it’s like your Scavenger Lands Guild in many ways. They run up and down the South-West coast here. I’ve been decoding them,” Sasi says. Well, that might explain why she’s paying so little attention to her appearance and hasn’t appeared to have slept at all. “Quite a complicated little code. The Red Moon came to me in my dreams and told me to steal this. They’re making moves for a Convocation, and I need to be there. They’re acting fast - far faster than I thought they would. I’ll be away for at least two weeks - I might not even be back before Calibration. There are plans in motion that I need to subvert.”

Keris considers this. “Will it be dangerous?” is her first question. “Do you need me there as a guard?”

“I have made... arrangements,” Sasi says clinically. “I have a few demons of the second circle awaiting my command. They should be more than sufficient. I am not there to fight. I am there to subvert and seduce.”

That’s reassuring enough for Keris to relax, though she pouts forlornly at the ‘seduce’ part. Still, with peers like Alveua helping her, Sasi should be safe, and that’s the most important thing.

“Okay. I suppose this means our plans for the Catalyst are on hold too... not that we can really do much there until we have the lay of the land to start with.” She purses her lips. “If you spoke to the Red Moon, does that mean you told her about Deveh already? I still need to send the Shashalme a Messenger.”

“I was going to do it today,” Sasi says, annoyance flitting over her face. “I pray to the Unquestionable, but I do not know why the Red Moon chose to favour me with this vision. I will tell her of this when I tell her that I will do as she wishes.”

Keris nods. “Maybe it’s because she trusts you to do it right?” she suggests. “Or because she knows you’re the best at this sort of thing?”

Sasi pats Keris on the cheek. “I am sure that must be the case,” she says sweetly.

Keris grins at her. “And speaking of what we’re good at, I should probably get on with what I’m meant to be doing here,” she adds. “I got sort of distracted with repaying the Shashalme for their gifts, but if you’re going to be gone for a fortnight I can get started on hurting the Dynast traders here. That might even get Nellens looking more seawards than inland.”

Sasi runs her hands through her hair, scooping it back. “Yes,” she says, thinking. “What are your precise instructions? Were any locations or individuals of note specified?”

((... uh. Her Urge is “Ruin the Dynasts who earn wealth from trade with An Teng”, so... actually wait, this is Keris, nvm.))

“Not that I remember,” Keris muses. “I’m meant to be ruining the Realm traders and Dynasts who are getting rich off of An Teng’s wealth - I think House Ledaal is the biggest one? Past that I think it was mostly left up to me. Dulmea? Was there anything else?”

“Well, there are a few locations you could start,” Sasi says, thoughtfully. She leads Keris up back to her study, and starts rummaging through maps and books, handing her a few. “Primers on genealogy, some of my notes on trade, maps of course...

She sits down, and slumps. Keris can see that she looks tired, and that she hasn’t had much sleep - and Sasi isn’t a morning person. “So, as for places to start out... well, most of the trade is directed through here. Steel Lotus and Dragon’s Jaw are the primary trading ports of An Teng. This is where the most Dynasts are - and so where the most attention will be.”

She leans over the map. “There... down here.” She circles a town, maybe fifty miles south of Steel Lotus, up the river into the Middle Lands and close-ish to the Domain of the Serpents Who Walk As Men. “That’s a Ledaal company town. They own it entirely. It’s a trading port which takes silver from upriver and transfers it from the barges to the ships which lead out to sea.”

She circles another point on the map. It’s considerably north of An Teng - she has to use a different map for it. “And here’s the An Zhal satrapy. It’s not very prosperous - it basically exists to provide a port of call for ships travelling between the Blessed Isles and the South. It’s run by the Merchant Navy,” she looks at Keris and tones down the dialogue, “... that means it’s under the control of the Imperial Household, specifically Princess Vanefa. That means money doesn’t pass through it, because it runs only to cover operating costs and to fund her. I wouldn’t recommend you attack it because the Imperial Legions man it, but if you base yourself nearby, you should be able to track vessels which dock there.”

Keris nods. “It’s monsoon season, so I can probably sink quite a few ships now and it’ll be put down to bad luck and weather. I can use that to get a handle on how hard they are to bring down, before they know to expect attack. Hmm. And it might be worth going up the river from the silver town and seeing if there are any dams I can break to flood the place. The longer I can keep them thinking it’s just natural accidents and bad luck, the better.”

“Mmm,” Sasi agrees, shoulders hunched over. She takes a deep breath, and then settles down by Keris, wrapping her arms around her. “I’ll miss you,” she says, resting her head on Keris’ shoulders. “Dragons, I’m exhausted. But I need to pack and get ready and prepare for what I’ll need to do and I need to get my pawns ready so they don’t do something stupid when I’m away and... how do I look?”

Keris bites her lip. “Gorgeous,” she admits, “like always, but... you should sleep before you go. You’re tired, and...” She strokes Sasi’s hair with her own, straightening it and massaging her neck and shoulders as her arms fold around the taller woman’s waist, “I don’t want you to go off feeling all tired and miserable.”

“I don’t feel gorgeous,” Sasi whispers, hugging back.

“Then let me show you,” Keris replies, gently turning her around and leading her back upstairs. “I know you want to plan everything out and pack up, but you’ll be able to do it a lot better if you’re not tired and sore. So you’re going to have a bath and a massage and then I’m going to play for you while you sleep, and you can see if you can visit your caves while you dream and plan out what you want to take with you while your body gets some rest. Okay?”

“I hate it when things change on me like this,” Sasi says, mostly to herself. “But... yes. I need to wash. I can’t meet people looking like this. I have to be clean.” She takes a shuddering breath. “And I must apologise for how I was this morning.” She brushes Keris’ ears. “You must have been in pain, if I was thinking the rain was very loud.”

Keris grimaces. “Downside to having hearing like mine, I guess. But hush! This is you-time, not me-time! Come on, upstairs, I’m helping you wash.” She hesitates momentarily. “Uh, the rain has stopped, right? Or at least stopped being so... loud?”

Sasi winces. “It’s... not quite as heavy, but it’s still quite heavy.” She sniffs. “And I’m going to get drenched on agata-back,” she adds sadly.

Keris cuddles her again, and leads her upstairs for pampering and sleep.

Sasi leaves the next morning, and looks at least somewhat refreshed from the massage, bath and lullaby Keris gave her. A good night’s sleep didn’t hurt. Keris offers her an umbrella to keep the rain off with wry amusement, and kisses her long and hard in anticipation of the next two weeks of missing her.

“Be safe,” she orders as Sasi mounts her agata. “And good luck. Come back soon.”

Sasi leans down for one last pre-dawn kiss. It’s raining, but neither of them care. “I’ll miss you,” she says. One hand goes to her abdomen. “I just hope the little one isn’t inconvenient for some of what I’ll be doing. It’s reaching the stage where I just want it over and _done_ with.”

“Have you decided on what you’re calling her?” Keris asks. “You said you’d have to talk to her father about it.”

“I haven’t, no.” Sasi pauses. “In truth, I barely got to choose for my others. My... my husband’s house had the names selected and he chose. He did consult with me, but... well, I’m still not sure.” She laughs bitterly. “Maybe I should name her after her grandmother.”

“... name her for what you are now, not what you were,” Keris advises after a moment’s thought. “For the life you have now, and the good things in it.” She presses a kiss to Sasi’s stomach under the wet travelling cloak she’s wearing. “Now, get going before you catch a cold. The sooner you’re there, the sooner you can come back home.”

The agatae leaps into the air, blinks, and then it’s gone. Keris is all alone in the City of the Steel Lotus.

She gets the distinct impression that she might not be entirely welcome here in Sasi’s house without the lady here.

She takes a few deep breaths - of air, for once - and ignores the rain trickling down her cheeks.

It’s just rain. She has no reason to be upset. She’s still got her home back in Malfeas, and any home of Sasi’s is a home of hers as long as Sasi is there.

It’s just two weeks. Then Sasi will come back.

“Right then,” she says briskly, wincing as she hears-feels-senses the patter of rain start up in her Domain to match the downpour out in Creation. “It’s fine, I’m fine. This is just a... working trip. I’ve got things to do. Probably wouldn’t have time to go back to the house even if I wanted to.”

She turns towards the coast. She can check how her eel is doing in the sewers - water may carry sound better than air, but the long pipe and the thick stone between them and the surface should mean they’ll be fairly quiet. And then she can head over to Dragon’s Jaw and start work.

Two weeks. She can keep herself busy for two weeks. Easy.

Keris busies herself with small things, at least until late afternoon by which time she a) is getting really quite hungry, and b) it’s stopped raining.  She looks around the sewers, nodding in satisfaction. The iszangols - there are more of them, now - have enough new skins to flesh their numbers out a little, and concerted effort on her part has broken apart the water-wheel into small enough parts to store in her Domain. She might be able to use the raw jade and silver, if nothing else.

Blissful with the absence of the pounding rain and happy with the progress of her silt-eaters, she heads out into the bay proper and spreads her hair wide, teeth forming in the cloud of red. Aiming herself in roughly the direction of Dragon’s Jaw, she sets off at a leisurely pace; a swift flitting shape in the water that engulfs and swallows any fish or fowl unlucky enough to get in its way.

((Yeah, Keris... uh, well, she has a bunch of auto-successes from MSM. So I guess the fish literally swim into her mouths))  
((Also she swims hilariously fast and her hair is three yards long, so all she really needs to do is point herself through a shoal and go _nom_.))

She is feeling a lot fuller and a lot happier by the time she reaches Dragon’s Jaw, and has a newfound appreciation for sushi.

The Realm docks are built in the Realm style, with several ships - both river boats and rarer junks for oceanic travel. They’re also a place where Keris doesn’t stand out so much - there’s people from all over Creation here, rather than the honey-skinned, black-haired Tengese.

((... who does Keris’s Urge come from? That is to say, it’s a Malfean Urge, but Ululaya and Madelrada seem to be the ones mostly involved in the Shore Lands..))  
((So I’m guessing that in whatever meeting of Unquestionable decided it, they were leading the discussion?))  
((Other Unquestionable also have interests in wrecking Realm trade))  
((Yeah, I’m mostly just asking if they were involved in setting it.))  
((Roll me... hmm, Cog + Politics))  
((2+1=3. 2 sux.))  
((Yeah, Keris suspects Madrelada was involved.))

Settling herself on the harbour bed next to one of the huge support pillars for a docking wharf, Keris sinks into meditation and starts reading through the materials Sasi left her on Dragon’s Jaw in particular. Shuri the Scarlet commands the garrison, she learns, and what Sasi has noted down about him is enough of a reason for Keris to avoid the man. An experienced veteran Dragonblood is not someone to mess with casually.

The Lintha, on the other hand... well, they _are_ supposed to be her allies. They’re children of Kimbery, and both Unquestionable Ululaya and Unquestionable Madelrada have interests in An Teng. Why, she’s even here on the latter’s orders, sort of! That means the Lintha are _obliged_ to help her out.

And if they try to disrespect her like they did Sasi, well, then she can just sort of... remind them that she’s a Princess of the Green Sun and that they should shut up and do what she says. In a friendly, smiling sort of way.

She’s a lot better at smiling now that she has so many more teeth than she used to.  She licks her lips at the thought. All of them.

Cocking an ear upwards, she listens to the boat traffic going past, picking out trade ships from the Realm, fishing boats and - especially - the liquid-sounding hulls of the Lintha.

The Lintha ships used around inhabited areas pass for normal vessels - or at least normal pirate ships pretending to be normal trade ships. Keris discovers this. She can’t tell the perfectly normal pirate ships apart from the Lintha ships.

... right until she hears badly pronounced Lintha-accented Old Realm echoing down through hull of a slim-lined junk. It sounds like they’re... in the galley. And grumbling.

She swims over to introduce herself, though first she takes the precaution of listening at the hull to take stock of who and what’s onboard.

The vessel sounds like it’s being loaded, and when she surfaces just enough to inspect it before darting down again, she’s right. They’re loading cargo onto the narrow board of the ship, which is a three-masted junk. Keris notices that some of the crew have the faintest greenish tint to their skin and their hair tends to be a little paler than the Tengese. It’s subtle, but it’s there. Those ones are the ones who have a faint Lintha burr to their Firetongue.

She hums quietly, and decides that now is probably a good time to try out her new trick. The Demon Swamp’s teeth aren’t the only part of him she’s embraced, though she only found out what else she’s internalised after putting Sasi to bed and flipping through her library’s records again in her dreams.

Waiting until the loaders are busy with navigating a particularly large and heavy crate onboard, Keris scales the hull and hops over the side in a flash. Quickly choosing her spot, she sits herself down at the, um, back end of the boat, a few yards away from the wheel in a corner where she’s unlikely to be trodden on.

Then she concentrates... and disappears. Her skin, her hair, her dress, ripple and blend into the wood she’s sitting on. It’s not just colour, it’s also presence - part of it is camouflage, but part of it is also just... retreating into the background. Becoming ordinary. Inconspicuous. Part of the scenery.

((Roll for sneakies. How long are you going to wait here? Just for a little bit, or... uh, well, Keris, as long as she doesn’t fuck up this roll, could probably ride it all the way to its destination))  
((: D))  
((She is _currently_ intending to wait until they’re out some way to sea and then go “soooo... got any eats?” and watch them all have heart attacks. But it’s Keris, and she may well decide to come along for the ride if it sounds interesting.))  
((Physique 5+Subterfuge 5+3 Silver Willow+1 bonus {going unnoticed by targets or guards}+2 stunt=16. 12 sux even while she’s _moving_ , and then commit 5m to double that to 24 once she’s stationary, lawl.))

Then Keris waits. She hears as they finish loading their vessel, and cast off with the high tide. The sounds of An Teng diminish behind them in the background as they make their way out of the harbour, carried by the sea, and the wind catches the sails. It’s hot and humid outside, but Keris is an unseen shape. She lounges on the deck, an unseen presence watching the coming and going of the crew of this junk.

And then she hears a rather interesting conversation, and creeps further forwards, so she’s near the little house-like compartment towards the back of the vessel.

“How goes, cousin?” a man asks. His voice has the burr of the Lintha accent.

“Fine, brother,” the other man says. He lacks the accent. “Shall I plot a course to Kalbada?”

“Yes, do so. They will want our cargo. The moon is nearly full, so it shall be three nights.”

Pursing her lips, Keris raises a silent eyebrow. Kalbada? A port, obviously - but a Lintha one? She tries to remember if she’s heard the name before, or seen it on any of her maps or in Sasi’s notes.  She... vaguely recalls the name. She thinks it’s a pirate isle of some kind. Or possibly a reef.

On the one hand, a pirate island sounds very interesting. On the other hand, _three nights_ on a fairly cramped vessel with nothing to do but sit and be quiet. On a third hair-tendril, though, it’s not like there’s anything urgent that needs doing back in An Teng, and three days would be half the first week of no-Sasi time in one go. Keris bites her lip, asking herself if she has the patience for it.

((Temperance 2; holy shit _double 10s_ ; 4 successes.))

... yes, she decides. Yes, this will be a welcome distraction. And if she’s bored, she can just meditate and play with Echo and have tea with Dulmea and see if Rathan can toddle.

Also, the looks on the crews face when she makes herself known after three days of sailing are going to be _hilarious_. She can hardly wait.

Things turn out to be even easier for Keris, because she can casually slip over the side and swim. It’s easy for her to keep track of a ship as long as she remains anywhere nearby, and there are interesting things down there. Like whales. Keris has never seen anything so large that wasn’t a demon.

They sing, too. Even if it’s loud - and it is loud up close; painfully so - their songs are beautiful. After getting enough distance from the pod that she’s no longer tempted to murder them all to shut them up, Keris takes eager notes on the haunting melodies and throws herself into composing half a dozen new harp pieces that incorporate similar elements.

She stays in the sea, tracking the ship idly, until dawn starts to approach after the third night, and she hears the slap of waves against an island approaching. Then it’s a simple matter of slipping up and onto the deck again, using darkness and the distraction of the approach as her cover.

“Child,” Dulmea says, cautiously, “can you not taste it in the air and in the water?”

Oh. Keris supposes she can. There’s a... hmm, something bleeding out into the world. Something which is akin to the Great Mother.

“It is the Red Moon. A demesne of hers,” Dulmea says authoritatively.

Keris frowns. ‘Are you sure?’ she thinks.

She can almost hear Dulmea’s long-suffering sigh. “Who do I have sitting on my lap?” she asks.

‘... good point,’ concedes Keris. ‘A place of Ululaya’s power, then. It’d be even better if it was Madelrada, since I think she had more to do with my orders, but... this is good, too.’ She breathes in again, tasting it on her tongue. ‘Mmm. Tastes like... home.’

“A place which resonates with her, yes,” Dulmea says carefully. “I wonder... perhaps it might once have been a place of the Traitor Moon before the Lintha found it.”

Keris blinks. ‘You can do that? Huh. So I could change a... a place of Air into one of Jacinct? Or one of Wood to the Shashalme’s essence?’ She tilts her head slightly, considering. ‘I... guess I can see that, yeah. There are already similarities in the essence, you just have to warp them.’  She tucks that bit of knowledge away for later consideration and creeps forwards to the front of the vessel, to look at their destination.

Kalbada is a low, flat reddish coral reef which surrounds a lagoon where other vessels are moored. These aren’t like the junks of the harbour - no, they’re obviously built to a quite different specification. Keris can hear the yammering and yelping of the demons that pull them. There’s also a small settlement built on the reef, and Keris can hear more demons from within the settlement. And then as the vessel gets closer, she sees that there is... no water at all in the central lagoon. The boats there float on ice. Ice which moves as if it’s liquid. But still isn’t water.

She’s itching to go and explore, but she’s also spent the last three days waiting for this moment, and she isn’t about to pass up the opportunity to pull Sasi’s appearing-out-of-nowhere trick on someone else. Slinking back to the steering cabin, she melts against the wall and waits for the ship to dock. It is something of an effort to hide her grin, and after a while she just stops trying and focuses her efforts on making sure she’s only grinning with one mouth. And that it’s the one on her face, rather than anywhere less conventional.

Keris has known sailors. Plenty of them. They usually show up in Nexus, get paid, and then drink all their pay, or spend it all on whores. The trick is to rob them when they’ve still got pay left, but they’ve drunk too much to chase you.

These Lintha-serving sailors are nervous. And from their conversations, they’re interested in booze, but not so much in men or women. Keris thinks of the tales of the Lintha she’s heard and winces. But here she is, on a hidden Lintha reef. And no one knows she’s here.

This may take some finesse.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New hack introduced; [“Mote Reactor Exaltations”](http://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/3389392/). All Essence is Personal, and stunts no longer regenerate motes. Instead, Exalts can flare their anima at any time to get two automatic stunt rewards per action. Rewards are 1-dot (2m/action) at the caste-mark level, 2-dot (4m/action) at the aura level and 3-dot (6m/action) at the totemic level. Characters can freely choose whether to take motes or wp as their automatic rewards.

The sun is rising in the east, painting the horizon a fetching shade of pink. As Keris sits on the bow of the ship, blending in perfectly with the woodwork, she scrutinises her environment.

With the rising of the sun, she can see more clearly that there are five vessels anchored here. They’re longer and thinner than the one she stowed away on. Maybe that means they’re faster? Keris isn’t sure. She doesn’t know anything about ships.

However, what she can most certainly hear is the noises coming from below them. A cacophony of hissing and grunting and barking and whale-like singing echoes up out of the water, travelling through the wood of the vessel to dance under her. As she watches, a giant black snake surfaces near the biggest of the vessels, water cascading off its back. That’s the vessel with the shiny gold curvy mirror mounted near the front.

The settlement here is sparse, and now that she looks more closely she can see that it seems to be built mostly from shipwrecks. The roofs are sail canvas and the biggest building is the hull of a vessel. The people down there look very pink.

Pursing her lips, Keris surveys the population of the docks, discarding her half-formed plan to terrify the captain. For a Lintha dock, this place... doesn’t seem very full of Lintha. She cocks an ear, listening hard. She’s not entirely sure what Lintha sound like, but she’s seen pictures, and glimpsed a few on Kimbery’s ice-floe palaces from a distance. They’re not at all like humans.

Her ears catch several instances of the distinctive accent. Waiting while the vessel manoeuvres its way into the ice not-water, she stares at the front of the big ship with the shiny mirror, where two people with the Lintha accent are talking to each other about... uh, boring things about the weather and how it looks like it might rain.

They’re both men, wearing hard-worn and tar-splattered clothes. However on top of that they’ve got various brightly coloured fripperies - gauzy veils (which have holes in), bright rags, and the nearer one has an elaborately flowing scarf in monkish orange. Both of them have lots of piercings, on the nose, ears and - Keris notices, eyes perking up - on their gills on their neck, too. Yes, they have gills.

And as for their features... well. They both have a distinct green tint to their skin, mixed in with the olive colour common to this region of the world. Their limbs are longer than normal and they have prominent joints, and they both have very long, almost horseish faces. One shaves his head, but the nearer one has long ash-white hair woven into dreadlocks, bound in gold rings. They’ve both got vicious looking swords on their back, long and mostly straight save for the pick-axe-like jagged point.

Keris hums with curiosity at her first real look at a Lintha. They look... sort of different to how she’d imagined them from pictures in historical texts back in Malfeas. Then again, she had sort of been skimming those a bit, and she never did manage to get much more than a blurred distance glimpse of the ones on the icebergs.

She shakes herself minutely. Now that she’s here... she’s honestly not sure what it is she was planning on doing. It seemed like a good idea to follow the ship and take her mind of things, but...

“The trade ships, child,” Dulmea reminds her.

... oh yes, that was it. She was going to set them on the Realm, or at least get some usable information out of them.

Well then. That’s easy enough. Keris slips silently off the bow and into the water, warily eyeing the dozens of demonic beasts lashed to the moored ships. She ignores them for a moment, sculls backwards into the shadow of the boat she arrived on, and wraps her shadow around herself.

She keeps a few things. She’s used to her height, so she doesn’t change that much - she’ll just have to be a rather short Lintha, she supposes. Or maybe just a young one who hasn’t hit her growth spurt yet - she _is_ very young by Lintha standards, from what she knows of their lifespans.

Beyond that, though, the Keris that worms her way through the water towards the large vessel is unrecognisable. She models herself after the depictions of trueblood Lintha she’s seen in books; sea-green skin and snow-white hair, lean and long-faced and graceful, trading her grey eyes for piercing crimson and outfitting herself in lacquered silks and finery. Scaling the side of the ship with slow and careful precision, she pulls herself up to a seat on the edge of the deck, drops her camouflage and waits for the pair to notice her.

((Cog + Subterfuge to get the details right))  
((2+5+2 stunt+2 Amulet=11. 10 sux. : 3))  
((... dammit keris))  
((you may have succeeded _too well_ at making yourself look like a noble pureblood Lintha))  
((Yeah. Um. I’m not entirely sure how to react to this.))  
((Hmm.))  
((Hahaha))  
((Well, from their perspective, a VERY IMPORTANT LINTHA just appeared behind them))  
((Per + Pres for your impact, I guess))  
((mwaa haa~ 3+5+2 stunt+3 Mendaciloquent Maverick+1 bonus {grain of truth}+1 bangle {Creeping People Out}=15. 7 sux.))

It takes them a while to notice her, and the conversation has wandered from the chances of rain to grumbling about feeding the _things_ pulling their ship and several other topics before one of them turns to point down the ship and catches sight of her.

From the way he turns a rather ugly shade of pale teal, Keris is fairly sure that she was right in her guess. They were slacking off. She tilts her head, twirling her bangle around her wrist with a finger, and gives them a smile of the sort more usually found on large marine predators.

“Brothers,” she purrs sweetly. With her hand on her bangle and a little nudge from her memories of Kasseni, the amount of venom her words emerge with is actually kind of impressive, even to her. The bangle whimpers faintly, and both of them flinch. “Am I interrupting something? Important business of the Family, perhaps?”

The bald one flinches back, hands going to his chest. He cracks his knuckles in a nervous manner. “N-no, Lintha,” he says. “I... I... we were just ob-observing the weather.”

“Yes,” hastily adds the second. “It looks like it might rain. We were just working out if we might have to m-move anything.”

“Under cover! Yes! To stop it getting wet!”

Keris allows a slow eyebrow to rise in imitation of Sasi’s ‘I am distinctly unimpressed with what I am hearing’ face. “Of course,” she drawls. “Then you had better tell me who is in charge here, so that you can get on with that. I will, of course, tell them about your... dedication, in volunteering to work an extra shift to care for the cargo.”

((... and they both get 2 successes on their Valour rolls))

Both the Lintha straighten up, a haughty expression on their faces. “Who do you think you are?” the white-haired one says. “This is our ship.”

“Yeah! We answer only to Lintha Gajui Narooj,” the bald one says, the nervousness gone as he resorts to arrogance. “I never saw you around, either!”

Their hackles are up now.

((Hmm. How much does Keris know about the Lintha septs?))  
((Almost nothing. She hasn’t shown any interest in them, they’re secretive, and she hasn’t met with them in the course of her duties.))  
((Roll me Cog + Lore))  
((Dangit. Hmm. They summon heavily from Malfeas, but they aren’t really _of_ it, so Malfean Scholar probably doesn’t work either.

2+3=5. 3 sux.))  
((Mostly I’m just interested in whether or not she knows enough to come up with a fake name.))

The Lintha are a threat across the South West, Keris knows. They worship Kimbery, and consider themselves to be better than normal humans. They have their ships pulled by demons. They recruit ordinary people into their family, have spies across the areas where they work, and she has heard rumours - okay, Sasi might have mentioned it once - that they were broken into groups like Dynastic houses.

As soon as they start to object, Keris’s mind kicks into high gear. It’s barely thought, more a rapid-fire sequence of impressions, based on what she’s learned from confrontations in Malfeas and what she knows about the Lintha. She hasn’t quite worked out all the details about the Lintha she’s playing, but she’s dangerous and a little bit unstable. Enough to make people afraid of her, because people who are a little bit afraid are much less likely to obstruct her.

She also knows that the Lintha are proud - Sasi has complained at length about _that_ ; the way they consider slights against them to be punishable by immediate violence. And most of all, she knows that in a violent, proud culture like this, if she doesn’t prove her dominance over challengers _immediately_ , she’ll lose it forever and this will all have been a dangerous waste of time.

All of this passes behind her eyes before they’ve finished speaking, simplified down and presented to her conscious mind as a simple choice: she can back out and retreat, or go on the offensive.

Keris trusts her gut, and attacks.

“Who do I think _you_ are?” she hisses, her eyes flashing furiously. “I _think_ you are insolent deckhands with no right to question me!” She spins off her seat on the side of the deck in a whirl of silk and hair that hides her fists and feet as they lash out, yanking the bald one off his feet to slam into the deck and then slamming a stiff-knuckled blow into the gills of the other before bringing her foot down in a stamp on the bald one’s neck that leaves him wheezing and choking for breath.

“You have not _seen me around_ ,” she sneers, “because I tolerate this place only for as long as it takes me to finish my business here and return to Bluehaven. Be grateful I leave you with your flesh intact. Now, I will make it simple. Lintha Gajui Narooj. Where is he?”

((PHYSIQUE + EXPRESSION FOR MOTIVATION BEATINGS))  
((KERIS IS HIGHLY MOTIVATIONAL! GIVES EXCELLENT SEMINAR ON WHY YOU DON’T PISS OFF THE PSYCHO TRUEBLOOD WHO’S PROBABLY A FUCKING DUKANTHA CULTIST!

5+5+2 stunt+3 Adorjan ExSux {lays low the proud, bad things happen}=12. 3+3=6 sux.))

They appear to be quite motivated to aid Keris, and she is fairly swiftly (after a few other beatings) shown to Lintha Gajui Narooj. As far as she has worked out from listening to other people’s conversations, not only is he the captain of this ship with the shiny golden plate on it, but he is also the commodore of this pirate fleet. Possibly because he has the largest vessel which has a shiny golden mirror thing on it.

Lintha Gajui Narooj is a whippet-thin man in his early twenties. His skin is paler green than the others, and he wears his white hair tied back in a single ponytail. His long limbs and muscled torso are covered in blade scars, but some of them look deliberate and self-inflicted, like they were done for artistic purposes. Keris can see that because he is basically just wearing a loose belly wrap which reaches down to his mid-thigh. He has a curved black jade-steel blade slung at his hip.

((... are they on deck, or in his cabin, or...?))  
((On deck, but under a shaded area at the back))

Keris motions the others away with a flick of her wrist and nods to him. “Lintha,” she says, mimicking their greeting to her and fast becoming aware that she may not have thought this through very well. Quietly, she coaxes Rathan awake in her mind and draws on his light, amplifying her innate beauty and putting her above suspicion.

((Activating Beauty-Over-Truth so that her blunders hopefully get glossed over as justified.  
Per+Exp=3+5+2 stunt+2 Kimmy autosux+4 Enlightenment autosux=10 dice; 3+2+4=9 sux.  
9m, 1wp spent. It’s a good thing we made all Essence Personal. : S))

“Lintha,” he says. “So. Tell me. What are you doing on my ship? And who are you?”

Keris glances around at the deckhands on the edge of normal-person hearing range, who are busily attending to tasks and definitely not eavesdropping at all. Some of them are not eavesdropping so busily that they don’t appear to be keeping track of which tasks have already been done. She cuts her eyes back to him, and nods downward. “My business here is delicate. Could we speak of it in private?”

He nods. “That would be wise,” he says, glancing around. “Get back to work, you gulls!” he roars at them. “I want the caulking checked in full, or I’ll feed one of you to the siaka!”

He leads Keris down into his quarters. It’s a room at the back of the boat. Despite it being quite cramped, it’s laden with fine silks and veils and wall hangings which obscure the wooden hull. There’s a shrine in here, tucked under the hammock, as well as a table. He offers Keris a seat, even as he remains standing, weapon close to hand.

She takes it with liquid grace and a nod of thanks. The brief respite from conversation has given her enough time to put together a story, and it’s an effort to keep the smug pride off her face at the poetry of it.

“My name I cannot share - yet,” she starts. “It’s crucial that my presence here remain deniable for both of us, at least for now. My business, though, I can share. I’m working on orders that come from the souls of Kimbery herself. Simply put, I am to cripple the hand of the Realm in An Teng.”

She looks up at him with a wild and slightly fanatic smile. “Imagine it, Lintha. No more need to hide from their navy. No more need to pretend to be what we are not. Imagine sailing into Dragon’s Bay with our colours flying proudly for all to see.”

Keris listens carefully to his reactions as she talks, monitoring his breathing and keeping an eye on his expression. He’s focused on her face, and she risks allowing a few strands of hair to rise up slightly from the floor and brush against his ankle, tiny proboscis-tongues sampling the taste of him for telltale signs of fear or exhilaration.

((5+1+2 stunt+2 Coadj=10. 4 sux, 12 if PWL applies (and it is explicitly valid for non-Awareness rolls).))  
((You’ll need to roll me Physique + Subterfuge if you want to do that by sleight of hand))  
((lawl 5+5+3 Silver Willow+1 bonus {“attacking” without giving oneself away}+2 stunt=16. Oh _wtaf_. 3 successes.

Like. Seriously. 3 successes. On 16 fucking dice. God, am I glad I activated Beauty-Over-Truth.))  
((... and he got 5 successes to notice it))

Keris can taste the eager sweat on him. He likes that idea. He likes the idea a lot. And-

A torrent of profanity she doesn’t even recognise breaks her attention, and she looks up to see that his eyes are wide open and he’s staring down at her proboscised, free-moving hair with a mixture of horror and disgust which seems to be burning through the fog in his head.. “Unclean,” he hisses, hand resting on his blade’s hilt. “Unclean!”

((... fuck it.))  
((Uh. Hmm.))  
((... okay, let me think for a moment about this.))  
((... welp, this is worth a shot, I suppose. It can hardly make matters worse.))

Keris stares at her hair too, though her own face is a mixture of exasperation and frustration. She’d _meant_ to brush his ankle so softly that he wouldn’t notice. Instead, it had wound up taking a good enough lick for him to feel it.

“Fuck,” she mutters under her breath, and then raises her voice to interrupt him. “Fine,” she snaps. “I’d hoped to keep this quiet and deniable, but if you want to make an issue of it...”

He looks up at her, his face twisted in rage, just in time for a mote of acid-green fire to flare on her forehead and spread anticlockwise into an empty circle of burning Ligerian sunlight.

“I spoke true, Lintha,” she says, her words resonant with terrible authority. “My orders come from the souls of the Great Mother herself, and her gifts flow through my veins.” Green-violet patterns spread down her frost-white hair in seconds, staining it like the venomous oils of an arrow frog. Her silks liquify into an ever-flowing dress of brightly-coloured oil that brings to mind the surface waters of the Demon Sea.

“Do as I say, and I will cripple the Realm’s hand here and free the Lintha from their need to hide in the shadows. Defy me, and you die here and now.”

Lintha Gajui Narooj turns an interesting shade of green. He looks like he might be about to be sick, but Keris may be projecting there for people who aren’t green skinned.

Either way, he slowly lets go of his blade, meaning to show Keris that he doesn’t want to threaten her. “You are a servant of Dukantha?” he asks in quite accented and imperfect Old Realm.

“I am a servant of the Great Mother,” she corrects in the same tongue; the liquid Kimberian accent clear and curt. “She gifted me with power, and sent me into Creation to do her bidding here.”

He places one hand on his heart, balling it into a fist. “I apologise for the dishonour I showed you, holy one. I thought that you might have been a trickster god, come to maliciously fool us. They blight us so, the gods who ask for more and more worship when we just try to make our way in the world.”

Keris raises an eyebrow. “I see... hmm. We may yet be able to help one another, Lintha. I can kill gods. Permanently. Tell me of the spirit courts of these waters, and those that trouble the Lintha. And then tell me of the trade ships of the Realm and their guards.”

((He gets two successes to try to persuade Keris that all the gods he named are the worst thing ever and out to get the Lintha))

Therein follows a long, rambling and not entirely coherent diatribe which lists the many cruel and injurious actions of gods and elementals, like the wicked Calm Pacific Serenity who becalms ships until they pray for release and the cruel and harsh seagull gods who must be bribed so that their birds do not eat the Lintha dead.

Eventually, though, he seems to get that Keris is not entirely believing him - or maybe just runs low on gods to blame for every misfortune - and moves onto the Realm. “The Realm keeps more to the north, except when they go along certain routes,” he says. “Their navy is harsh and cruel. Often they will send their ships to escort anything of high value, or sail in convoys protected by a single naval vessel. And they do such cruel and malicious things to innocent Lintha, as soon as they meet them!” He swears blind that he’s found the husk of a burned-out Lintha ship, every crewman crucified on the mast and left to die.

Keris listens attentively - well, she listens attentively to the bits about the Realm, though she does make a mental note to find out more about this Pacific Serenity spirit. The part about the convoys catches her particular interest.

“A single naval ship to protect a convoy?” she asks. “They’ll likely change that if attacks begin, but... promising. What about the Dragonblooded? How many would such a vessel have?” A shark-toothed smirk flits across her mouth. “I think losing an entire convoy at once would be fitting repayment for their crimes against the Lintha, no?”

He sucks in a breath. “I heard tale that not all Realm naval ships even are captained by one of their Dragonkin,” he says, “but how can you know it? Any one might have one of them, and then they’re throwing around fire or breaking your mast! It’s unfair! Truly unfair! If you were to murder them all, holy one, things would be better!”

By “them all,” he seems to mean “all Dragonblooded”.

Keris waves a cautionary hand to calm him down. “Better by the end, yes, but we can’t afford to provoke the Realm overtly, or they will send an army to burn everything on the sea to ash. Better to wound their trade here with a slow poison and let them bleed out.” She winds a brightly-coloured lock of hair around her fingers, tugging thoughtfully on it and feeling the faintly slick sheen of poison coating it.

“Still,” she continues, talking half to herself, “if they aren’t expecting an attack, and only have a single naval vessel... I should be able to identify any Dragonblooded from the water and kill them first. Strike from underneath and tear open the hull, cut down their leaders while they’re busy trying to stop the leak, leave the naval ship to drown and plunder the others... yes, and the Realm need never know exactly what it was that struck their convoy down.”

She grins. “It’s definitely possible. So.” Her currently-crimson eyes meet the Lintha commodore’s. “Lintha Gajui Narooj. You have ships at your command. Were I to need support to claim the treasures I might capture from such a convoy, and to locate and intercept them in the first place, could I count on your aid?”

((Keris determines he has a 3 dot principle of Hatred (The Realm), 4 dot principle of Wealth (I love it so), and a 4 dot Principle of Valour))  
((... I approve of his Wealth principle. : P))  
((Sigh. I’d set up all the kinds of internal tensions in the group and various alt-candidates she could try to replace him with, and then Keris basically instantly goes and allies herself with him))  
((Hey now, nothing says she won’t get to them, too. I mean, she’s getting Haneyl at the end of this session. : D))

“You offer me fortune, the chance to shed the blood of the Realm and tear out the hearts of their sailors for the Great Mother, and a chance to test my blade?” he asks rhetorically. “I would follow you to glory even if you were not one of the servants of my beloved Mother.”

Keris nods regally. “I am glad to hear it. We can discuss the fine details later - for now, I need to rest and plan.” She tilts her head. “This is a place of power, yes? A harbour of the Red Moon; Unquestionable Ululaya.”

He looks blank at that. “It is sacred to the Great Mother,” he says, finding surety there.

“Then I will be meditating at the bottom of the harbour and praying to Her.” She stands. “It would probably be best to keep this,” she gestures at her forehead, “from the crew, at least for now. They need not know that I serve Her directly, only that I do her work. When do you next sail?”

The captain cracks his neck. “We wait here for three nights, which will move the reef closer to our destination faster than sailing. We must also harvest the tokens from the pearlmen here.”

“Understood.”

With that said, Keris ghosts out of the cabin and takes the first route that presents itself over the side of the ship and down into the water, taking care to stay out of sight of anyone who might notice the burning green brand on her forehead. Which is to say, everyone with a functional pair of eyes.

Once in the ice-water, she propels herself down to the seabed with a couple of kicks, spiralling past two of the writhing, gnashing demons without their teeth getting close to her. She reaches the bottom unscathed and allows the toxins in her hair to dissolve, even as she fades into the silt perfectly in a cross-legged meditative position. She can feel the energies of the demesne around her, and she’s relatively sure she’s at or near the exact centre. Well, just under it, probably, but she’s definitely close enough.

Shutting her eyes with a smile, she opens them into her Devil Domain.

Dulmea is waiting for her in one of the gardens just outside her apartment building. She is disappointed in Keris. Very disappointed. Not only had she done this without sufficient information, but - worse - she got caught in an act of sleight of hair.

Echo is perched on top of a wall, cheerfully eroding it away by her mere presence. And she is laughing at Keris. And making little miming games with her wind-girl friends where one of them notice that the other’s hair has touched them, and then they both fall over silently laughing.

Keris is aware enough to know that she isn’t getting out of it this time, and takes her chiding like a woman. Which is to say that she winces a lot and looks shamefacedly at her feet and shoots Echo poisonous glares now and again as Dulmea chides her for being crude and impulsive and _obvious_ in her actions, with a detailed list of everything she did wrong.

She seems to have been saving things up for a while, because she brings up the cat incident again, as well as a couple of close calls from Keris’s time with the Red Mountain family. Keris mumbles “sorry” and “do better next time” where it seems appropriate, and tries to survive the scolding with her ego intact.

((Conviction 3: 2 successes. Mou~))  
((Echo gets 6 successes on her ‘destroy Keris’ ego’ roll.))  
((and... uh, Dulmea got 6 successes on ‘get it into Keris’ head’))  
((Keris has an MDV against Dulmea of, uh... 4. So that worked rather well.))

Keris’s ego is feeling very small by the time Dulmea finishes.

“Mama!” Rathan mewls. “Ma! Ma ma! Ma ma ma ma! Ma! Ma!” He’s possibly scolding her. More likely he wants to be played with. Given that he’s holding his arms and hair up and bouncing up and down on Dulmea’s lap, it’s probably the latter. Keris takes him happily, happy that there is at least _one_ of her soul-sanctum’s inhabitants who isn’t telling her off or teasing her, and gives a meek curtsey to Dulmea. Her coadjutor returns it with a distracted nod, having apparently decided to get all of her scolding out in one go and moved onto telling Echo off for not keeping her serfs from stealing things and murdering her musicians.

It must be said that Echo seems to be weathering the scolding rather better. Keris is half-sure that she might not be listening at all. Regardless, she leaves them to it and retreats to play with Rathan some more. He seems to like being bounced and grabbing her hair, and she lets him lean on it as she coaxes him to stand upright.

Carefully, Keris winces as he heavily pulls on her hair, managing to straighten himself up. One chubby hand grabs her offered finger, and he takes a step, before falling down on his bottom. This seems to be hilarious to him, and he tries to get up again.

This time he takes a few toddling steps, and lets go of her hair, arms pinwheeling.

In the distance, she can hear Echo being scolded for not listening to her scolding and instead chasing ribbon butterflies and where did those butterflies made of ribbons come from anyway, young lady?

Then Rathan falls in the canal.

Keris squeaks in fright and dives in after him, her hair already reaching forward to hoist him up and out of the water if he looks like he’s drowning.

It’s not until she has him cradled against her that she remembers that he’s not a normal human baby, and that she first found him submerged in the middle of an ice-moon full of water.

Rathan giggles and splashes her, flailing about with apparently full enjoyment. He likes the splashes. He also seems to like swimming.  She laughs along with him and tugs him along, heading out into the lake. While she has no intention of leaving him up in his moon again, it’s still his place, and she’s fairly sure he’ll enjoy visiting it.

It’ll also be an opportunity for her to try something that she’s had in mind since Dulmea pointed out the flavour of the demesne she’s sitting in. Gathering him up in a hair bundle and flipping out of the water to throw up curtains of spray for his enjoyment, Keris plunges into the stream of blood-brine that trickles down from the heart and swims up towards the Red Moon.

“Remember here, Rathan?” she whispers to him. “This is your place, isn’t it? Your special place where you’re in charge.” She keeps her arms around him in a firm cuddle to reassure him that she’s not going to leave him there again, and bounces him up and down some more as she murmurs in his ear.

“Mmmm! Ma ma!” he coos. “Ma mine! Eko no!”

She blinks, startled. “Were... those were words!” she exclaims. “Those were... okay, they were ‘mine’ and ‘Echo’ and ‘no’ as your first words besides ‘mama’ - yes, I’m mama, that’s right - but still! Words! Good boy! You’re growing up!”

She kicks closer to the centre of the heart, where she’d found him. “Now... the question is, can I help you grow up more? Echo had time - time and being called out a lot, and I think she may have stolen a few of the people I inhaled. But you’re a Red Moon, and we’re sitting in a place full of another Red Moon’s power. So... hmm.”

... yeah, there’s only really one way she can feed him power when he’s a little baby like this. Sighing a little and shifting her Amulet away from her chest, Keris closes her eyes and feels out blindly through the senses of her meditating body, grasping the flow of demonic lunar essence through the ice-water of the demesne. She begins, slowly but surely, to draw it into herself.

But instead of using it to recover her own reserves, she pulls it into the Domain, through her dreaming self, and cradles Rathan to her chest.

“Come on, little one,” she whispers. “Drink, and you’ll grow up all big and strong.”

It feels... strange. Keris isn’t... uh, sure what to think about what she’s doing. It’s strange, but it’s also natural and it’s sort of relaxing and feels good. Even if he’s kind of chilly. She strokes Rathan’s forehead as her son suckles, and sings a little lullaby, half-remembered from somewhere. She can’t remember the words, only the tune.

Slowly, gradually he puts on weight. It’s not so much that he’s growing, but he’s shifting in form. His arms and legs are getting longer and his torso is shrinking relative to them. He’s still a chubby baby, but he’s not quite as chubby or fragile by the time he removes his head from his chest and burps.

“Good boy,” she whispers to him, stroking his hair as it clings to hers for a moment before relaxing. He makes a contented little sound of satisfaction, blinks up at her sleepily, and then tucks his head into the crook of her shoulder and appears to fall asleep.


	13. Chapter 13

((Session 69))  
((awwwww yeah))  
((in which Sasi suddenly comes back to entertain Keris.))  
((Oh ho? Well, hmm. Hang on, I wanna make the felid apes first, so, hmm...))  
((...))  
((alef.))  
((yah?))  
((session number joke))  
((...))  
((... _y r u so terribad?_ ))

Rathan doesn’t reawaken; apparently all worn out by his growth spurt. After a while, Keris gently eases down from his moon and returns to Dulmea, where she commandeers a sketchpad and settles down to think. Really, he doesn’t get enough attention with her out all the time, and she can tell that looking after him is a hassle for Dulmea.

So she needs to make something to take over the job. A parent-deva. Hmm. Keris scribbles idly, playing with ideas. She wants something... parental. Big and warm and nurturing and loving that can cuddle him and keep him entertained - and the same for any other children she has, or finds.

Once settled on a rough idea of what she wants, she passes Rathan to Dulmea, gives her a quick cuddle, and curls up in a pile of furs to meditate further. She focuses on her family - on the memories of her parents, on the warm, rough hands of her father, on her mother’s silky hair and the careful way she brushed her daughter’s. The blankets fold around her like an embrace as Keris concentrates on the memories, letting them seep out into the heavy blankets and imbue them with life.

The pile of blankets coughs, splutters, and shifts. It shakes and pulses, like there’s something sleeping underneath them. Keris prepares to uncover whatever she’s incubated, but no - it’s not something under them. The blankets wrapped around her warm up, feeling softer and warmer and more comfortable. They vibrate softly, like they’re purring.

Keris squeaks - a fact that she will staunchly deny to anyone who asks - as she’s lifted higher and cradled tenderly. She stops struggling and enjoys the embrace for a moment, before wiggling around to get a better look at her creation past the arms. White fur seems to cover most of it - the same shade as the blankets, though softer - but as her head pops up out of the circle of arms, she catches a glance at the creature’s face.

She blinks, and feels a little choked up at the sight. The face itself isn’t familiar - it’s catlike; with large expressive eyes and the rough texture of pottery. But the colour...

Working a hand free, Keris lays it against the newborn deva’s cheek, and compares the two shades. The burnt-umber of this big, ape-like creature’s mask is darker than hers, but the colour contrast brings back a clear memory; one she hadn’t needed Sasi to retrieve from the depths of the past.

Her own tiny hand, cradled in a larger, darker one; her little fingers wrapped carefully around her mother’s thumb.

“Hello,” Keris whispers, blinking back a couple of tears. She relaxes into the embrace, feeling little and safe and warm in a way that she hasn’t for a long, long time.

It feels like home.

“Hello,” the creature says back, in a distinctly feminine and Rivertongue accented voice. “Shhh, dear. How are you feeling?”

Keris gives a choked giggle. “A lot better, now.” She blinks, taking stock, and winces. “Uh, mostly. I think I might’ve been meditating too hard, though. Headache.” It’s a nagging ache between her temples, the kind she’s becoming used to from too-long exposure to loud sounds. “Ugh. Probably those stupid giant worm things thrashing around outside.”

“You should keep away from loud noises,” the creature tells her reassuringly.

Keris nods wearily and motions towards the stairs that lead up to Dulmea’s central dome-room. “Yeah. C’mon, I should show you to Dulmea and introduce you to Rathan. I made you to look after him while I’m outside doing stuff.” The creature rises without actually putting her down, and she peers down at the rest of its body as it unfolds upwards.

It’s, uh. Really rather big. Much bigger than a human. It can cradle her in its arms as easily as she can carry Rathan, and something about its broad, deceptively strong limbs reminds her of the gorillas she saw in the Tengese jungle.

“Hmm,” she hums thoughtfully. “A sort of cat-gorilla... a felid ape.” Her lips move briefly as she sorts through a few of the more common dialects of the City for the right syllables. “A... szulo, yes.” Bouncing happily, she allows the newly-named szulo to carry her up to see Dulmea.

Dulmea looks up at it. And up some more. “Child, what is this?” she asks. “Some kind of creature which resembles the offspring of an erymanthus and a teodozjia?”

“She... you are a she, right?” Keris checks, glancing upwards from her seat. “She’s a felid ape. I made her to look after Rathan... um, since I know you sometimes get kind of tired dealing with him and Echo. Here!” She hops down and gathers Rathan up - her sixth soul still fast asleep and blowing sleepy bubbles - then turns to the felid ape.

“This is Rathan,” she introduces him. “My son. And soul. And sort of little brother? At least, he’s like Echo’s little brother, and she’s like my little sister...” She pauses. “... okay, never mind that. This is Rathan, and he’s very important. He’s just done a lot of growing, so he’s asleep at the moment, but he likes attention and swimming when he’s awake. And he cries a lot when he’s unhappy. And then makes it rain everywhere. Try to avoid that.”

Kissing Rathan affectionately on the forehead and wincing as her headache throbs again, she passes him over to his new caregiver.

The felid ape has no problems whatsoever in wrapping him up in its arms, and Rathan shifts in position, to cling onto its fur with chubby hands. The creature begins to hum a familiar, wordless lullaby.

Then Rathan sneezes when some fur gets up his nose, and there’s a sudden splatter of hail outside.

“Ah,” Dulmea says acidly. “The easy part. Forgive me, child, but I will take more faith in the skills of this creature when he is awake and screaming. Or wanting to be entertained.” She pauses. “Or when Echo is bored and decides to start prodding him. Or...” she trails off. “And you will need to make sure that you can replace it when Echo kills this one,” she adds wearily.

“I will make sure Echo knows that she is not allowed to kill my serfs,” Keris says haughtily, slightly hurt by the caustic tone. “And... well, it should take some of the work off you and let you have some time for your own things. I figured you were probably getting tired of having to mind him all the time, and I wanted to... to give you some you-time.” She chews her lip, looking down at her feet.

Dulmea’s hair envelops her. It’s cool, and slightly damp and oily now that it’s tendril like. “And I do appreciate it, child,” Dulmea tells it. “How about the next time you spawn a soul, though, it can shape itself into a responsible adult?” She seems to consider something. “Or at least as close as you can manage, yes?”

Keris pouts at her. “I’m an adult!” she protests. “I’m twenty!” She pauses. “... or maybe twenty one. Ish. Hmm. I don’t think I was really all that clear on when my birthday was when I was taken. It’s not in any of the memories Sasi found, anyway.” She shakes her head. “Anyway, I’ll go tell Echo not to kill anything smart enough to ask her not to. I didn’t hear any yelling while I was meditating, so I’m guessing she’s out running?”

Dulmea shudders. “The last thing I saw, she was doing something with lots of ribbons,” she says wearily. “I’ll clear it up when she’s moved on.”

Keris rolls her eyes, gives the szulo a friendly nod, and heads out, following the trail of ribbons and slowly-healing damaged buildings. Echo is apparently in an unusually festive mood today, though her reasons are probably the kind that only make sense to hyperactive wind-waifs and small children.

Keris finds her in a new square that she was pretty sure wasn’t here before. It’s a garden square, wild with vegetation, which Echo has decided _really_ needs to be wound up with ribbons. Echo seems to be directing her gaggle of little girls made of light and wind in the directions - and some of them look... different from the others. More separate. At least one of them seems to have acquired ear-hoops made of ice, fastened through ribbons wound around her wind-head.

“What _are_ you doing?” Keris asks fondly, dropping down from a rooftop a few paces away from her. “Do I even want to know?”

Echo cheerily waves up at Keris, making it clear she’s having fun. She then waves her hands over her head and gestures wildly, finishing with her her hands clasped in front her her like she’s a good girl. Keris... isn’t sure what she’s trying to say, because she has this weird feeling that Echo is preparing for a birthday party.

“A _birthday?_ ” Keris frowns. “No, you were born in... uh... hmm... it was after I came back, and that was in... so then... sometime in Falling Air, I think. It’s not your birthday for another two seasons.” She smiles through another wince - her head is _really_ starting to pound. Coming out here probably wasn’t a very good idea, really.

Well, she’s here now, so she’ll just have to knuckle down and ignore it. “I promise we’ll have a big party when it does come, though,” she says. “I’ll find somewhere for you to run around and play outside all day, and get you some really special presents. But! You have to promise me something, okay? I made a serf to look after Rathan - a felid ape. And it’s her job to keep him happy and stop him from wrecking my Domain - and maybe hurting all your friends with acid rain when he throws a tantrum - so you’re _not allowed to kill her_. Okay? I know you like to tease him sometimes, but can you at least not kill his nanny? Or anything else smart enough to ask you not to.”

Echo pouts. Her plaintive gesture makes it clear that _no one_ has ever asked her not to kill them, so why is Keris making a big fuss about it now?  Keris sighs. “Leave _this one_ alone, at least? I know you kill the chell, and... well, it annoys Dulmea, but I won’t ask you to stop because she can just make more and they’re not really people. But I also know you like Dulmea, and if my szulo isn’t looking after Rathan, she has to. And that makes her all stressed and unhappy.”

Echo’s shoulders slump. An unhappy Dulmea is apparently a mean one who does mean things like _ruining_ the stuff that Echo is doing by making all the things she’s done not done any more. So unfair! A hopeful expression crosses Echo’s face. She wants to do that in return for Dulmea not chasing her out of places any more.

Keris chuckles, kneeling down to Echo’s level and reaching out with her hair to play with Echo’s. “I’ll talk to her about being less strict and letting you have space of your own that you can do what you want with. Though... with you and Dulmea and Rathan all in here, it’s almost feeling a bit crowded, especially now that you’ve started making friends.”

She glances around at the wind-girls. “You started making them before I picked up the trick, didn’t you? Clever little you. Hmm. Well, maybe I should work out how to make this place bigger. See if there’s anything beyond the cloud-wall.” She nods thoughtfully, adding it to her to-do list for when she has some free time. “Well, if that’s... agh!”

Her headache redoubles as she stands to go, and she stumbles. “Agh... gah... hells and Makers, what... blue silence, I’m going to _murder_ those worms if their noise is doing this!” She clutches at her temples and squeezes her eyes shut against the splitting headache, willing it to go away.

The headache is really bad. Like, really bad. Really, really bad. It feels like... like there’s something behind her eyes, pushing against her brow. It reminds her of when she got a fever when she was younger and her neck swelled up. The mumps, they called it. It’s like that, only it feels like her head is bloating rather than her neck.

Collapsing to her knees, Keris clutches at her skull. Is it Rathan’s fault? Did feeding him do this? She hits her head against the soft earth, pressing her skull against it trying to cool down. The earth is warm, not cold like the rest of her soul.

And now the ache is spreading through the rest of her body. It makes her flesh twitch and shudder and hurt. It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts.

And so Keris is fully aware when the pain spikes, because it tells her how much the spike hurts. Because it feels like something just kicked her in the head. From the _inside_.

She opens her mouth to shout, but it isn’t her natural mouth that opens. It’s her _whole head_ that splits apart lengthways, the way she’s only done once before while experimenting with what she could do. One glance of what it looked like in the mirror was enough to put her off from ever doing it again, and judging by Echo’s mildly perturbed expression she was justified in that opinion.

But her head is host to a thrashing spiky ball of _pain_ , and so Keris opens a set of leopard-toothed jaws from crown to chin and _screams_ as her body convulses with awful, agonised effort.

Keris has never really coughed up anything with any of her new mouths before now. Well, now she has. It’s a learning experience.

Of course, she doesn’t feel this at the time. She coughs and hacks like she has pneumonia, wheezing from her head-maw, and then there’s a sudden sharp spike and something fleshy and bloody the size of two fists held together comes out, a mess of grey flesh and blood and gore which looks like a wrinkled walnut.

Keris stares at it blankly for a moment, eyes vacant, as it sinks into the ground. And then she topples over backwards, unconscious.

Getting the thing out of her has not, she discovers upon drifting back into consciousness some time later, got rid of her headache. Lessened it, yes - considerably, in fact. But eliminated entirely? Nope, it’s still there, a dull throbbing like a healing wound or a sprained muscle.

This is, she decides blearily, _extremely_ unfair.

Keris then sees the tree which now dominates the square. It has pale wood and is quite tall - almost as tall as the buildings around it. Keris doesn’t really _get_ trees.

And then she looks closer and sees its fruit. And blanches.

Echo cheerfully waves ribbons around, in a decidedly birthday celebratory fashion.

Keris opens her mouth and closes it again several times, staring at the... the fruits; she’s not sure what they are, which have _human faces_ on them. Most have neutral, calm expressions, but this does very little to lessen the creepiness.

“That,” she starts, faltering, “you... why are you... why does _it_ have...”

She stops, takes a deep breath, and starts again, pinning Echo with a sharp look. “Did you know this was going to happen before it did?”

Echo tilts her head, then nods. Spreading her hands, she points at all the plants and does a complicated gesture which suggests that more and more have been appearing recently, so clearly there had to be a boss plant. Then with a shrug and a flourish, she clearly indicates that of _course_ the boss plant was hiding in Keris.

“...” says Keris in response to this clear and obvious logic. “... okay, you know what? Fine. Most days I’d want to know what it does or why it’s here, but I have Lintha to deal with, and... and I can work out what this all means later. Maybe when Sasi gets back. So... you keep decorating and saying hello to the... the boss plant, and I’m going to go back outside and try not to think about how it got there.”

Echo gives her a thumbs up, because now she has _permission_ to do all the decorating she wants to and Dulmea can’t object! Hah!

Keris opens her eyes underwater, at the bottom of the lake of liquid ice, and winces. Okay, yes, maybe _some_ of the headache was coming from the worm-things. They’re shrieking - it’s like whalesong but far more discordant, and _really loud_. She glares balefully at them and kicks up towards the surface, uncertain of exactly how much time has passed since she went down.

It’s sunrise outside. Keris pales. So it’s been twenty five hours. At _least_. Lintha Gajui Narooj had said that his ship would leave in two days, she recalls. She looks around for it hastily. Surely he’d have sent someone down to warn her if he was about to leave?

The Lintha vessels are still moored here, fortunately. There’s a colder wind coming from the opposite direction to the sunrise, and there are darker clouds on that horizon.  Dark clouds... Keris frowns. She thinks that might mean rain, or a storm, but she’s not sure. She really should learn some more about... sailing stuff and weather, she reflects. She might not need it, but the ships she hunts do, and she can’t exactly track them if she doesn’t know how they work.

She swims over to Narooj’s vessel and boards it again, slipping quietly into his cabin and flaring her caste mark as a reminder.

((Hmm. Ah, yeah, she never actually dropped her LSD disguise in the real world.))  
((That would have been embarrassing.))

The man flinches at her sudden appearance. “Esteemed servant of the Mother,” he says. “Did She send you a vision you wish to impart to me?”

“No vision tonight,” she says. “I wanted to confirm a few points before you left. I’ll contact you by Messenger when I have a target convoy for you to attack - do you have a way to respond to such messages?”

He pulls a disgruntled expression. “Would that I had!” he says extravagantly. “Indeed, I very nearly did - but cruel, wicked, evil sorts of impure blood lost me the chance to have such a wondrous device! Such shame! Such misfortune!”

Keris quirks an eyebrow, suddenly interested. “Very nearly? Where is it now? Do you know who has it?”

“Ah it was a cruel captain in the Realm navy, sailing by when I was younger!” Lintha Narooj says. “I wished for us to raid him and take it, but my coward of a captain refused. Alas. Alackaday!”

“Ah.” Keris wrinkles her nose. “Well, I’ll see what I can do about finding one I can lend you.” She certainly isn’t going to give him _her_ Cherub Shrine. “Until then, I’ll only contact you with coordinates for attacks. I’ll need to look into the local spirit courts first, so it won’t be too soon.”

“Oh, of course, respected one.” The man tilts his head. “If you are nearly of the power of Lintha Dukantha... why, no doubt you have the power to leave a vessel quite helpless and unable to fight back! Truly I would be grateful for such visions of easy prey you could grant me!”

((... hmm. She does need to learn a navigation style, but as a Lintha her cover would already know that. Hmm.  
Reaction+Politics=6. _1_ success, jfc that was close.))

“Oh, I guarantee it,” Keris smiles. “Though I would-”

She stops, just in time, as it occurs to her that asking him to teach her how navigating ships actually works would probably be a bad idea, given that she is pretending to be a pureblood Lintha.

“... not... discount the risk entirely,” she continues with barely a stumble. “The Dragonblooded may be weaker than us, but they’re cunning and ruthless. Don’t drop your guard when I call for you.”

Drat. Now she’s going to have to find somewhere to learn ship things from. Maybe Dragon’s Jaw will have something. She was intending to check the place out before detouring, after all. Keris nods firmly. “I will send you one message tonight, so that you know what to look for,” she tells him. “It might be a while before I find a convoy worth taking, so until then; bring honour to the Lintha and may your treasuries grow ever-fuller.”

“We, the Lintha, shall grow ever more pure,” he says, bowing his head and making a wave gesture with a palm and a fist.

Keris returns it, and then slinks out of the cabin and back into the water. Ice. Stuff. She vaguely debates hanging around for another day and feeding Rathan some more Essence, but a brief glance into her Domain tells her that he’s still fast asleep and looks set to stay that way for a while.

Slipping silently out of the coral reef and back into open water, Keris dives deep, sheds the Lintha skin, and sets her course for...

... for, uh...

... oh.

It occurs to Keris that it may have been a mistake to pay so little attention to their course on the way out here. Because now she has no idea how to get back to An Teng, beyond “go roughly in the direction of the sunrise.”

((dammit keris))  
((It’s worse than that. The island moves at night based on the phase of the moon. So she’s not even where she got on. : p ))  
((also dammit me, because I honestly didn’t think of this until now))  
((Ha ha ha ha))  
((Great, so basically all I have to go on is “the ocean is west of An Teng, head roughly east to get back to land”))

Keris is completely lost. Again.  She indulges herself in some cathartic head-thudding against the seabed and eats a couple of fish and a small shark as she considers how to respond to this problem. When a brilliant idea that will solve all her problems completely fails to materialise, she swears quietly and starts sullenly swimming eastwards towards the sunrise. That should at least get her to _land_ , and then she can... uh... work out the rest from there. Or maybe find a ship and follow it. After making sure that it’s going _to_ An Teng, and not coming _from_ it.

((2+3+2 stunt+4 MSM autosux=7. Huh. 6+4=10 sux. Wow, apparently Keris got lucky for once.))

Keris gets lucky for once, and fairly quickly stumbles across a ship carrying spices from further West, headed for Steel Lotus. Cinnamon and nutmeg, to be exact. Grumbling somewhat at the slow pace of the thing, she tags along in its wake, occasionally swimming up to examine the hull and consider ways of sinking it or others like it. She’s fairly used to sinking ships by now. This is an oceanic one, but there’s still the old reliable way of “poking lots of holes in it with a magical spear”. She wonders what would happen if she chopped down the mast in the night, and resolves to find out - not on this one, which is leading her somewhere she wants to go - but later on, with another test boat.

((How long does it take her to get back to Dragon Mouth Bay?))  
((Six nights - they’re not as fast as the Lintha and also it’s a longer distance))  
((23rd Falling Wood, then - heh, only three days before Sasi is due back))

By the time they arrive in familiar waters, Keris is _incredibly_ bored, and gratefully rockets forward into the Bay, leaving the crushingly dull, slow ship behind her. She makes a wide curving approach back into Dragon’s Jaw and this time emerges onto land, clothing herself in the garb of a sailor and covering her hair with a hood. It’s not like the City of the Steel Lotus - it’s a lot more ramshackle and diverse and dirtier - and Keris tours it with interest, noting the main features and observing the inhabitants.

It’s only then that it occurs to her that she has no idea how to get back to the Lintha reef.


	14. Chapter 14

The port of Dragon’s Jaw smells like ports all over the world. There’s the smell of the tar, the sea, and the rotting seaweed - and of course the way that the inhabitants are prone to using the waters as a latrine. The buildings are businesslike and functional compared to the splendour elsewhere in Steel Lotus - and of course, there’s a distinctly Realm cast to the civic buildings located here, even if they’re made from local materials.

Keris spends a while sniffing around the docks - both figuratively and literally - getting a feel for how they work, who the people in charge are and where the centres that see everyone and everything passing through the port are. Given that it’s... well, a port, her first stop on that last count are the eateries and whorehouses. Sailors are nothing if not predictable in their tastes, and long journeys at sea lead to a fairly small set of desires when they land - good food and female companionship chief among them.

Of course, this is An Teng. Keris vaguely remembers from Sasi’s extensive briefing notes which she mostly didn’t read that elements of Tengese society have been structured to serve the visiting Dynasts - and their necessary entourages. To that end, Dragon’s Jaw has a considerable culture of what might euphemistically be called the ‘hospitality industries’. The higher end places serve the Dragonblooded and the respected mortal elite from the Realm, with fine wines, excellent meals, and trained courtesans. Keris hears mention of a social sub-caste called Those Who Serve the Radiances who particularly associate with serving the Terrestrial Exalts, catering to every last whim of them.

... and then there are the ones who aren’t ‘good’ enough for such high standards, and they’re a much more familiar sight to the Nexan-raised Keris.

Around the time the sun starts dipping horizonwards, Keris finds herself in one of these low cost tavern wharf dives, which has lanterns decorating the pontoons which reach out over the water. They’re frying some kind of meat out there, and serving it with spiced rice and soup to whoever comes and pays. Keris can smell the salt in it from here - enough to give someone who eats here a considerable thirst and more than enough to get them drinking. And then once that money’s been extracted... well, from the noises upstairs they have an arrangement with ladies and gentlemen of the night. Or in this case, the late afternoon.

The mercenary cunning of it makes her smile - it reminds her of the Nexan attitude to grabbing profit wherever possible. She orders a bowl of soup and munches on an apple, considering her next move.

‘Shuri the Scarlet’s in charge, then,’ she muses to Dulmea with her mouth full, feet propped up on the table. ‘Him and his ships’ll be one of my two big problems once I start going after ships. And the Immaculates are the other, since they aren’t gonna believe that the ships are just sinking by chance for long. So I...’

She blinks as a thought occurs to her. ‘Actually... what if some of them didn’t? I’ve already got the Lintha, but if I got some ships of my _own_ , too... I mean, I’d need a crew, but that’d help a bunch.’

“Child,” Dulmea points out, “you do not actually know how to sail. At all.”

‘Well it can’t be that hard,’ Keris points out logically. ‘Mortals do it all the time.’ Narrowing her eyes, she thinks back to her lessons from Sasi on politics. They’d skipped part most of the finer points of participating after it became clear that Keris was, uh, not really cut out for that sort of thing, but she’d still picked up quite a lot about how social structures and systems worked with an eye to finding their weaknesses and breaking them.

‘But yeah, I’d need to pick up a crew,’ she agrees. ‘A safer backup to the Lintha fleet - maybe I could even use my alliance with them to set myself up as a proper pirate queen. Hmm. That means people who already have a reason to go against the Realm in An Teng. Or just against An Teng in general. And out of them; people who I can easily give something they need, so they’ll _want_ to help me and do what I say.’

Rolling her feet off the table, she nods decisively and leaves the tavern through the kitchen, snagging the contents of the cash drawer and another few strips of meat on her way out. ‘And _that_ means we’re probably looking at people like Piu - poor and trodden on. Maybe families down on their luck, or something; there’s gotta be some at the bottom of the pile who hate the ones at the top. Let’s go looking.’

With a full belly and a new goal, she heads back out in search of weaknesses she can exploit in the web of families that make up the Tengese people.

Having made that decision, she almost literally trips over a parade of people making their way down the street, holding yellow-painted boards with the Firetongue for “for hire” on them.

Keris being Keris, she decides to poke around and find out what they’re on about. Apparently this is a tradition for the various misbegotten groupings who live crammed into Dragon’s Jaw and the surrounding areas, camping out on the sand dunes further up the coast and living on the roofs of warehouses.

The misbegotten are Tengese who’ve been kicked out by their family. Well, that’s the theory. In practice, since that’s been a tradition for so long there are now family lines which lack a respected family heritage, pseudo-families who can’t marry anyone “decent” in Tengese society and so take all the worst jobs and the worst roles. Many of them come to Dragon’s Jaw, trying to get away from Tengese society and maybe even sign onto a ship as labour. Of course, there are far more of them than any navy would need and the Imperial Navy doesn’t trust them, so they just bundle up in this peripheral quasi-state, between An Teng and the ocean.

Blending into the parade unobtrusively, Keris follows along with it, thinking hard and fighting down various urges, chief among them the twin desires to hug some of the younger members and to stab whichever families threw them out for something as stupid and petty as propriety or tradition.

The part of her mind that does the thinking, however, and isn’t hissing to itself in outraged kinship, is spinning in excited circles. These people; these misbegotten, they’re _perfect!_ How did she miss them befo- well, okay, Sasi probably mentioned them while she was distracted or bored or not listening or something. Still, they couldn’t be better for her plans. She can give them a family - a proper family, one that loves them as long as they love her - and they can help her with... well, with almost anything. She can guess how fast a cult like this will spread through the misbegotten population, and they’re _everywhere_.

But how to approach them? A goddess, as with Piu? An employer, to earn their trust and get them away from Dragon’s Jaw before starting to lure them in? A straightforward offer of family?

Whatever she’s going to do, she decides, it would best be done away from the eyes and ears in the middle of Dragon’s Jaw. She can’t imagine that no word would get back to the Dragonblooded if she made a passionate speech here. Searching around in her Domain until she finds her zither, Keris double-checks that her hair is covered and starts playing.

At first she lets her her fingers wander where they will, picking up the mood of the crowd - desperate, hungry, despairing. Then she begins nudging them. She keeps it quiet and low; a subconsciously-heard tune half-hidden under the sound of the crowd, as she injects notes of hope and happiness, buoying their spirits up again and bringing a second wind.

And as she does so, she drifts a little away from the crowd. Not far. Just enough that the ones who can hear it clearly follow her to keep listening, and those beyond them echo the movement unconsciously mirror them. Then it’s just a matter of gently tugging until the whole parade is changing course.

The parade with their yellow boards and yellow string and yellow scarfs isn’t really going anywhere in particular - and in fact isn’t really one group so much as a bunch of people all going in the same direction - so after a while it splits up. Some of them rush for a rumour of jobs down on the docks, while some just drift off and some follow Keris’ music in particular.

They wind up on the sandy shore to the north of Dragon’s Jaw, where there are drag marks on the sand for where the fishermen have dragged their boats out to sea and where they drag them in for the night. There are only a few scanty trees here, blow by the wind and plastered with salt, and they’ve been harvested for branches. There are shanty towns here, built on the sand, and compared to the more solid houses of the city they’re a poor show indeed.

Keris brings her music to an end, and there are groans and protests from the misbegotten - and then several more groans and protests as they look around and realise how far they’ve come from the city. But they’re quickly brought to an end as Keris leaps up into the branches of one of the trees and tears off the scarf covering her hair, letting it fan out like a curtain of scarlet in the salt wind blowing in from the sea. The sudden flare of colour and movement draws glances. Her next words hold them.

“Misbegotten!” she calls, with a louder chord on the zither resonating along with her words. “Brothers and sisters! Listen to me!”

... Sasi is much better at talking stuff, Keris belatedly remembers. Oh well. She’ll just have to wing it, and speak from the heart.

“Brother and sisters,” she repeats more softly, starting a simple little tune on the zither. People crane in to hear better - both her voice and the music. “An Teng has done you wrong. It’s cast you out, denied you families, refused you work. I feel your pain.”

She does. Keris, more than anyone, knows how much it hurts to have your family taken from you - and to be denied one when you want one so desperately. Keris, more than anyone, knows what it’s like to live on the outskirts of a society, surviving off its refuse, tolerated only as long as it would be harder to kill you than ignore you.

“I feel your suffering,” she repeats. “But you don’t have to suffer. You don’t have to be alone.” She gestures to some of them, the pseudo-family groups that have formed, that unconsciously cling together as they watch her. “Some of you know this already!” she declares, and projects _kin_ and _belonging_ and _love_ through her zither’s strings. “That if the families of the cities cast you out; you can build your own! That if the blood of your blood will not take you, the... blood of the covenant will!” She congratulates herself quietly on remembering that phrase, then kicks herself quietly for using it on a group that probably won’t know what it means. Well, they’ll probably sort of understand it from context. She pushes forward.

“The families you make for yourselves are still looked down on by the rest,” she acknowledges. “They still deny you work, deny you a place. But there’s one family that won’t! One family that will accept all of you; regardless of where you were born or what you’ve done. A family that’ll take you as you are and love you for it... and which can help you stand instead of pushing you down!”

Keris’s hearing is sharp, and she catches the uneasy muttering that starts at that. She smiles and plays a laughing, chiding bar to pull their attention back to her.

“Not the Lintha,” she grins. “Not the Immaculates, either, and not the Realm.” She closes her eyes, looking up to the sky, and takes a deep breath.

And her sailor’s garb explodes into light; shreds of fabric tearing away and dissolving as they flutter down from her perch. In its place, a thousand lotuses bloom, clothing her in a dress of gold and carmine, with a silver crown of lilies across her brow.

“ _My_ family,” she says, her eyes and ears tracking over them. “And it can be yours as well, if you want.”

((What’s she rolling, what charms is she augmenting it with, etc etc?))  
((As per our hacked social rules, this is still just one scene towards building the principle. So barring potent magic, it’ll be a passing curiosity and there will be people talking about it, etc etc))  
((Yah, but that’s why I have a CLEVAR CLEVAR IDEA to bait the hook.))  
((Rolling... well, Per+Exp, I suppose, boosted with Attention-Holding Grace and the Kimmy Excellency.  
5+3+3 stunt+3 Kimmy ExSux=11. 3+3=6 sux.  
Attention Holding Grace roll: 3+5+3=11; 8 sux, holy shit, everyone is paying attention to Keris and likes her a lot~))  
((Yes, they like her a lot. This scene certainly works for building that principle - but you said she’s leading it into something? So... uh, continue, I guess?))

There’s a lot of interested muttering, and everyone seems very intent on her. Keris notes some jockeying for position among the crowd, and holds her hands out imploringly, remembering what happened the last time she made indiscriminate use of Rathan’s light.

“I won’t ask you to choose now, without thought,” she calls. “And it is your choice - yours and no one else’s. My family welcomes all who come to it, and turns nobody away, but nor will I force someone to join who doesn’t wish to. My family loves all its children, and has no fighting between brother and sister,” she tosses a reprimanding glance at the people pushing one another to get a better view of her, “but nor will we fight those who have done us no wrong.”

She spreads her arms wide. “The choice is yours. Go back to your homes. Think on it. Ask yourselves what you feel, what you want. And if you are interested - if you want to hear more - then come back three nights from now to this place, and I will give you food to sate your hunger and tell you more of what will be yours if you say yes.”

((My genius plan is revealed. BRIBERY. With FOOD.))  
((Ah, yes. Keris knows this well.))  
((So, question.))  
((The food.))  
((The harbour may have considerably less fish in it by this time three days from now.))  
((What’s Keris’ Bureaucracy again? : D))  
((Hey, she can easily _catch_ enough fish to feed them all. Cooking them all will be slightly more of a challenge, but she said she’d fill their bellies, not that it would be gourmet stuff. Huh. Hmm. Though... I wonder how many inyenki the po-soul made? They’re chefs.))  
((Heh. And that’s the day Sasi gets back. Or more accurately the night of the day Sasi gets back.))  
((So, uh, one threshold success on an Int + Survival roll in canon gets you enough food for one person for one day, +1 success needed for each extra person.))  
((... hmm. On the other hand, Keris can swim at like 70mph and kill an entire shoal of fish in one pass with Echo’s help, then go grab them all and throw them into her Domain. It’s more a question of how she cooks them all than whether she can catch them. Though technically she automatically gets 4 sux on every roll from MSM, and she can probably make a bunch of rolls in three days.))  
((Yeah, uh, it rather is a question of whether she can catch them. _Vast_ numbers of people will come looking for free food. That’s why I brought up Bureaucracy rolls.))  
((Hang on, how many people was I speaking to, and how likely are they to tell other people?))  
((Maybe fifty odd. And they’re going to tell fucking _everyone_ after you went and did something explicitly supernatural, went and looked all magical, and promised them all food.))  
((... sigh. Dammit Keris. Well, hopefully I don’t get some nosy Immaculates showing up to ask inconvenient questions. Hmm.))  
((Yeah, they are going to be showing up, because you did this close to Dragon’s Jaw. And dealing with things like gods showing up and promising food is sort of their job.))  
((Hmm. Dang. I mishandled- well, hmm, no, not _mishandled_ , but I approached this with the wrong set of assumptions. Which wouldn’t be such an annoyance if they weren’t ones that Keris should have thought of.))  
((I should have let you have a Cog + (something) roll to realise these problems, but... uh, you didn’t tell me what you were planning so I could warn you of it.))  
((Yeah, sorry. Urgh. I should really have focused the most potent bit of that speech on _don’t tell anyone else yet, especially the Immaculates_.))  
((But I was thinking too far forward about how it was going to be a problem when they found out later.))  
((Well, it’s common sense for Keris to know how people act in response to food because... uh, she’s one of the people who used to show up to the promise of food. So... uh, Cog + Survival to find the problems with her plan and get to retcon things.))  
((Heh, yes. And she’d certainly have told Rat, albeit few other people (so that there would be more for her). 2+3=5, 2 sux.))  
((Yeah, Keris’ finely honed street rat instincts sees the obvious problem with appearing, doing something magical and then promising food. Namely, lots and lots of people will show up because this kind of rumour spreads, and... um, if the local Immaculates work like the Nexan ones, they talk to the street people and will often reward them for information with bread.))

“But be warned!” she adds hastily, as the muttering gets much, much more interested. She can hear... oh Makers, she can hear people excitedly discussing who else to bring, planning to take away as much food as they can, wondering who could lend them bowls or bags or baskets... yeah, she needs to cut this off at the head, or she’ll be feeding the whole city. As well as, if this is anything like Nexus, some very annoyed Immaculates with sharp pointy objects.

“Be warned,” she repeats sharply, “the Immaculate Faith does not tolerate rivals. It doesn’t want you to rise up from where society has put you. If the Immaculates find out about this offer I make to you, they will come to kill me - and all of you, for nothing more than listening. I know you wish to tell your families and friends; to invite them as well. But you must stay silent for now.”

She pins them all with a fierce gaze. “If you spread rumours of my family, I will hear them. If you bring down the wrath of the Dragonblooded upon us, it will be on your heads. Someday - someday soon - you can bring others in, welcome them into the family as I’m offering to welcome you. But until then, this pact between us is a private one. If you speak of it, the food I offer will turn to sand and salt, and you will find nothing here. I keep my family safe from those that would hunt them - and we do not tolerate betrayal.”

Keris hopes this will sway them. She can only hope. As she looks around, she can see that there are broad family groups among quite a few of her onlookers. The misbegotten have their own quasi-families after all, or so she’s heard. They’re mostly talking among themselves, listening to the elder ones. It occurs to her that she might have more success if she goes among the misbegotten and works on their circles of friends and allies and families, rather than trying to lure them off the streets like some street preacher.

After all, it’s not like Keris ever respected street preachers when she was on the streets. Tried to steal their belts, yes. Respected, no.

“Subtlety is still difficult for you to grasp, I see,” sighs Dulmea, and Keris feels herself flush slightly. “Child, what possessed you to make such a public spectacle?”

‘I didn’t make a...’ Keris trails off. ‘I guess... I might’ve got a bit carried away. I just... they want a family and so do I, why can’t they see that and just agree? And then we could all be happy now, instead of messing around and waiting!’

“You were not always so willing to embrace the unknown,” Dulmea reminds her, gentle but chiding. “It is only since you gained the power of the All-Makers and became confident in your safety that you have lost your caution.” She sounds rather disapproving of that fact. “Don’t let your impatience push you too fast. If you wish these mortals to belong to you, you need to gain their trust.”

Keris sighs. But she’s forced to agree with her coadjutor. With a vaguely sulky mutter of ‘why d’you always have to be right about things?’, she lets the beauty fade and returns to a plain, simple dress - similar to the clothes many of the misbegotten are wearing. She drops down behind the tree and uses the brief moment she’s out of sight to draw her shadow over herself as well - not a great change, but she tints her hair darker and nudges her skin closer to the golden hue of the Tengese. None of them got a particularly good look at her on the way here with her hood up, and up on the tree they were more focused on the dress than on her, but she doesn’t want any rumours escaping that match her real appearance _too_ closely.

That done, she drifts out from the tree and into the crowd. A corridor opens up around her as she approaches, the men and women eying her with both awe and fear, but Keris smiles to them, tousles the hair of a boy who ventures close enough to poke her as though she might be an apparition, and tries to look as harmless as possible as she makes her way towards the accretion point of the largest pseudo-group.

((oh keris. she wants people to love her, and now she’s pretty and strong and nobody can hurt her and she can make other people happy so of course she gets impatient and tries to shortcut the process.))

The group seems to be clumped around an old woman who’s being carried on the back of a sling by a hulking young man. She’s got a tiny shrine to Mercury she holds between her legs and mumbles prayers to - she might be some kind of holy lady or impromptu priestess. Several of them call her “grandmama” or “grandmother”, but from their appearances Keris doesn’t think they’re all related to her.

Keris approaches slowly, conscious of the stares she’s getting, and stops a few yards away from the old lady before carefully bowing as respectfully as she can.

“Grandmother,” she greets the woman, and falls silent in lieu of any obvious opening beyond that.

((... hah. Oh Keris. She may or may not be aware of it, but by Tengese naming custom, she’s showing her a great deal of respect by using the title rather than asking for a name.))

Mumbling to herself, the old woman counts her prayer beads. A younger woman, hair greying, steps in front of her. “My mother prays for guidance after... after all that,” she says. “I speak for her while she waits for guidance from the gods.”

Keris nods, and quietly hopes that the gods aren’t listening very hard. “I... may have got carried away,” she admits, with an embarrassed smile. “I’m sorry if I scared anyone. It’s... been a long time since I met people I could feel kinship with.”

She frowns, considering that. The Althing... well, some of the peers are her equals, like Naan, but so many others are posh and polished and smart like Sasi, and even Naan is a comrade rather than kin. Echo, Rathan and Dulmea don’t really count as people she’s met, and she had no real family in Nexus after Rat left...

“... a _long_ time,” she mutters to herself reflectively. “Far too long, really.”

She’s clearly making a good impression. Well, they’re caught between fear and awe, which is kind of a good impression, right?

The middle aged woman shuffles her feet. She clearly isn’t quite sure what to say.  Keris decides to make it easier on her, and unslings the zither from her back. “I’m still learning the music of the Shore Lands,” she says. “Perhaps you could teach me some that I haven’t heard yet?” She smiles cheerfully. “And if I already know them, I could play them for you all.”

“I’m... possibly,” the woman says. “Respected one, I... I do not know why you do us the honour of searching my mother out.”

Keris mulls that one over for a few moments, giving it genuine thought. It’s remembering Rat that gives her the answer; how he’d defer to her on planning heists, just like she’d defer to him on selling their spoils. And maybe it’s Sasi as well; the way that she asks Keris for her opinion, even when Sasi is smarter, and only then gives her own advice about what to do.

“Because... I’d like to hear what she has to say,” she eventually answers. “If I want you all to be part of my family, then that’s the same as me being part of yours. And that means that when you speak, I should listen. One person speaking from up high is a good way to get people’s attention and interest. But...” she smiles ruefully, giving Dulmea a mental nod of concession, “... it’s not a good way to build something like a family. It doesn’t work unless the listening goes both ways.”

((Per + Pres))  
((3+5+2 stunt=10. SINCERITY, HO! Hey, sweet, 7 sux.))  
((Also dammit Keris, stop being so sincere, you’re making it impossible to use your “fast-talking half-truths and bluffing” Style.))  
((Oh, the irony.))

The middle-aged woman still looks awkward, but the old woman lowers her prayer beads. “Revered one,” she says in her old cracked voice. “If you would bring meat, my children will bring bread and we might talk in private - without so many curious ears to listen.”

Keris nods. “I will bring some fish, grandmother, and be honoured to hear what you have to say.”

She manages to lose her undesired followers, slipping away and circling around to where the old lady would speak with her. Her name - her daughter says in a whisper - is Darling Yellow, and she is a priestess of Mercury, who these of the misbegotten worship in place of the Golden Lord. Her prayers keep her children and her friends’ children safe on life’s journey. Keris finds her again seated in a small quasi-courtyard, between wooden shacks on the sandy ground. There’s a firepit in the middle of the courtyard. Keris remembered her instructions and brought what fish she could quickly acquire.

((Roll Physique + Survival for the results of that fishing trip, MSM benefit applies))

((5+3+2 stunt=10...  
... and jfc am I glad for 4 autosuccesses from MSM, because that would have been a botch otherwise.))  
((what the actual hell, dice fairies.))  
((Because they clearly wanted you to poison the old lady with blowfish))

Keris gets lucky, and finds a cluster of squid lurking down near the seabed, in the darkness of some washed-away masonry. Her hair grabs for it, and by the time she surfaces she has enough wriggling squid to feed an old lady and several of her relatives. She manages to restrain her hair to only eating a few along the way,  largely by diverting it into drinking up the seawater and salt left over from her dip in the water instead. Rather smug at her innovative new solution to damp hair after a swim (even if it does involve a rather odd-sounding slurping noise), she gives the Darling Yellow a brief bow from seiza, presents the squid to her daughter, and returns her attention to the elder.

“Grandmother,” she greets respectfully. “What was it you wanted to speak to me about?”

The old lady has been lowered from the man’s back, and sits propped up against a stone. Now that Keris can see her fully, she notices that the old woman is missing both feet. She has sores on her legs, but someone’s been treating them - there’s a greenish paste smeared over her old wrinkled leathery skin down there, keeping it moist. Her near-skeletal hands play with her prayer beads, over and over again.

“I do not know what you are,” the old woman says, eyes drifting towards where the squid is being prepared. She only has a few teeth left in her mouth, but she’s apparently going to make her best effort towards it. “But you come here, with your magic and your divine signs and - why would I not want to talk to you?”

Keris gives her that one with a nod. “Fair point. What was it you wanted to talk to me about first, then? What I am?” She pauses, considering what she’d want to know in the woman’s place. “Or what I want from you?”

She pauses for a while, sketching little empty circles in the sand. “Mortals aren’t the only ones who cast out kin,” she says eventually, thinking of the All-Makers; crippled and caged and cast away from the world they’d created. “You probably want to know what I want out of this, and I’m not going to pretend there’s nothing. But mostly what I want is kin. A clan, a family. A people to call my own.”

((Per + Pres))  
((Hah. _Now_ we’re onto the half-true implying-she’s-a-misbegotten-goddess stuff I can apply my Styles to. : D  
3+5+2 stunt+3 Mendaciloquent Maverick+1 bonus {grain of truth}=14. 9 sux.))

Keris clearly stirs some interest in the old woman, and though she tries to hide it she’s showing a mix of concerned fear and almost... almost hungry interest. “Are you a divine one, or are you a progeny of the divine, if it pleases you to answer?” she asks.

Keris cocks her head, trying to remember what An Teng’s opinion of spirit-born is. Because, well... she _is_ sort of the progeny of Dulmea, who is divine - well, a spirit, which is nearly the same thing. And the Silent Wind chose her, which is _basically_ the same. Right? But then again, she’s also a Peer of the Althing, and of equal status to a citizen in her own right.

She notices something about the old woman’s accent, too. Although her voice is old and cracked, she’s still got some traces in it that suggest that she’s from a noble family rather than one of the lower class ones. Something more like what she heard among the Red Mountain family than she hears every day on the streets.

She remembers Joyous Raven; how she’d been so concerned about paying proper respects to the spirits, and decides to go with a version of the truth.

“I’m a child of the divine,” she answers, “but I’ve grown a lot since I was young. I’m stronger than my mother now; divine in my own right.”

‘You’re still smarter, though,’ she admits internally to Dulmea. ‘And better at posh things.’

“Ah,” the old woman says cautiously. The scent of grilling squid and spices drift over, along with the sizzling as the sauted squid are thrown onto a hot plate. “So, perhaps, you might tell me more of what you wish? I am - of course - honoured if you might wish to serve as a patron for my poor, isolated and weak misbegotten clan but we are humble folk and we live hard lives, away from the eyes of many of the gods. There may be other families, more respected ones, who might be better suited for one such as you.”

This pulls Keris up short. What exactly does she want from these people right now? She knows her eventual goal, or at least has a fuzzy idea of it, but working out the steps between _here_ and _there_ has always been something she’s preferred to leave to other people.

“More respected, maybe,” she agrees, focusing on Darling Yellow’s second statement first. “But like I said, mortals aren’t the only ones who cast out kin and declare them misbegotten. Of everything in An Teng that I’ve seen so far, it’s clans like yours that I feel kinship with. Those that the eyes of other gods pass over.”

She breaks off briefly to accept a rough platter of squid, twining several sauted tentacles around her fingers and popping them into her mouth one by one. It gives her a little time to think.

((Rolling Temperance; 1 sux.))

Well, she muses over the tangy burn of the spices. She’s working against the Realm, and that’s not going to change. Trying to hide it would be stupid, especially if she wants a family that’ll help her do it. But after their reaction to her preaching... yeah, maybe go a bit slower this time. A bit more cautiously.

“I have enemies I work against, foreigners trying to sink their claws into An Teng from abroad,” she reveals. “Not ones I’ll ask you to fight; I won’t pull your children into a personal war. But the eyes of the rich pass over the misbegotten without seeing them. People talk, and sometimes they don’t realise that you can listen. Information - wheres and whens and whos - that, I might ask you for, if you can gather it safely.”

Well accustomed to tracking people’s emotions from their breathing and heartbeat by now, Keris keeps an ear trained on the woman as she speaks. Darling Yellow is no Sasi; she’s got far less of an impenetrable mask covering her instinctive reactions.  Listening to her and making a few educated guesses, Keris thinks that Darling Yellow probably suspects that she’s a god opposed to the Immaculate Faith - helped by some of the whispers from her family who are listening in - and if that’s the case, it’s likely that she’s trying to weigh up the balance of risks between getting on the wrong side of the Order and of a divine patron.

((Well, she’s not wrong. : P))

“But what I said to your daughter was true,” Keris adds, wondering which way the scales are tipping. “This sort of thing should go both ways. What would you ask of me?”

The old woman shifts, knobbly old hands clasping each other. “Our lives are hard,” she says softly. “If you, revered one, were to keep us safe from sickness and keep us in good fortune such that the cruelness of fate and wicked men does not mean we go hungry, our prayers of thankfulness would be many.” She’s phrasing things so she’s not asking for anything directly and not promising anything.

Keris considers. She already knows from Piu that she can heal sickness, and she’s pretty sure she could make or summon a demon like the Stomach Bottle Bug that had attended to the Soiled Doves. And... she’s fairly sure she remembers that some of the gifts of the Great Mother can command the oceans to yield treasures or tribute.

She smiles. “I think I could see that done.”

Darling Yellow bows to her from her seated position, showing remarkable flexibility even if her old joints click when she does that. “With such a blessing, your name would be in our prayers, revered one,” she says. “How might we address you to give thanks?”

Keris smiles happily. This is one question she _did_ think of ahead of time! And she rather likes the name she came up with, too. It suits her.

“I’m glad to have met you, Grandmother,” she says in the Tengese dialect of Firetongue. “My name is Riyaah MuHiitiyah.”

_Wind of the Ocean_. Yes, Keris thinks. That describes her rather well.

“Riyaah MuHiitiyah,” Darling Yellow says, swirling the name around her mouth. “Yes. We thank you for your blessings, revered one, and your name shall be in our prayers this night.”

((Can I assume Keris introduces herself in similar less-street-preachery fashion to the other two or three main groupings of misbegotten that were at the beach party without having to explicitly RP through them?))  
((Yes, although Darling Yellow is abnormal in the fact that she’s actually basically a fully trained albeit self-taught ragged nun. She’ll have to use more... mmm, street ways of getting in with the others - Darling Yellow basically “understood” straight away that this magical being is offering patronage in return for worship))  
((Cool. I’ll do a dramatic stunt for it, then? What shall I roll?))  
((Per + suitable Ability for how she does it))

Keris bows again and leaves, drifting back to the crowd and picking out the other centres of discussion. Some of the more individual misbegotten are starting to drift away, but the family groups don’t seem to be going anywhere in a hurry, especially when she appears again, and by the time she’s approached the second elder, they seem to have gathered that she’s going to talk to each of them individually like this.

Keris quickly finds that Darling Yellow was probably the easiest sell of the groups. She already had a rough idea what was going on and what Keris was - admittedly a not-quite-accurate idea, but a not-too-inaccurate one either. These others... they’re more like Yelm and Shan and Piu, not really knowledgeable about much more than the fact that there’s something magical about Keris and she seems to want something from them.

She muddles through. She’s not sure exactly what impression some of them leave with, but she makes sure to communicate the same main points that she told Darling Yellow - that she feels a kinship with them, that she’s misbegotten of sorts herself, and that she can help them in return for their aid in passing on rumours and information that might help her in her efforts against foreign powers who want to claim An Teng for their own.

They seem wary of asking her name or offending her, but she greets them respectfully and offers it nonetheless. By the time she’s finished, she’s fairly sure they see her as more than just a beautiful figure preaching from on high, though exactly what’s been added to that image probably varies somewhat.

All in all, Keris thinks she probably caught her mistake. Mostly. She can’t guarantee that someone she hasn’t got to won’t go to the Immaculates or the authorities, though.


	15. Chapter 15

It’s nearly the end of Falling Wood, and the weather in Steel Lotus has contrived to get even hotter and stickier. The monsoon thunderstorms are a daily occurrence now. As a result, Keris spends the next three days faintly regretting her promise to the misbegotten, alternating lurking around the Immaculate temple in a variety of forms, alert for any indication that they’ve found out about the meeting, and diving to the bottom of the bay to try and block out the awful sound of the thunder.

At least it gives her plenty of time to hunt. She’s building up quite a store of fresh seafood in her Devil Domain; kept cool and chilled in an ice-lined cellar that Echo has nonetheless managed to break into for just long enough to steal a large dead sea scorpion and run off with it.

Spying on the Immaculates, Keris manages to deduce that they do have a fair number of agents in the community - most of them just devout believers who tell the priests things, but they also seem to have a few professionals. They’re actual professionals - they don’t report directly to the temple, and instead leave messages in the collection tray. Keris found this bit out when she was... um, considering the contents of the collection tray.

Deciding that there’s no point in wasting good fortune, she flips through some of the recent messages, hoping very hard that these ones aren’t in horrible annoying unfair code like the spies in Matasque used.

They are in horrible annoying unfair code. Keris adds that as another piece of evidence in favour of them being professionals.

Sulking and muttering to herself some more, Keris regards the tray with the same wariness as a lesser woman would show a viper. Then again...

... she’s stolen it anyway, right? So it’s not like they’ll be confused as to why they don’t have any reports, they’ll just think someone wanted some money and was very un-devout, and not worry too much since the sort of person that would steal a collection tray with less than a quarter-yen of offerings on it probably isn’t the sort of person who could decipher spy code.

Which they would be entirely correct about, since Keris can’t.

And and and, they probably can’t talk to the professional spies very much, or they’d just do that instead of leaving coded messages, so they might not even realise the messages didn’t get through until after the meeting! Unless they announce that it was stolen or something... but even then, it might delay any messages about the meeting for long enough!

Feeling very smug at her clever scheme for secrecy, Keris delivers the messages halfway to the bay before realising that Sasi might want to have a look at them. She stows them in her Domain instead. Sasi is good at codes and things; she can handle working out what they mean.

She gets away scott free with a collection tray which might buy her a day’s food, and some messages she can’t read. Truly she is the mightiest of heroes.

((these are the tales of the Exalted; demigods who shake the world with their passage))  
((Does she _hear_ any indication that they know - any people talking about it or whatever? Given that she can hear through walls and so on.))  
((How much time is she spending lurking around there?))  
((Essentially all of the time she’s not spending cowering at the bottom of the harbour with her hair and fingers in her ears, whimpering and taking out her grouchiness on any sealife unwise enough to swims within three yards or so.))  
((That is to say, it’s probably her primary activity of the day.))

To the best of her knowledge, they’ve heard that there was some controversy involving the misbegotten and the possible appearance of a water-elemental before them. They’ve scheduled prayers to placate the sea-spirits and remind them to keep the water elementals in the harbour under control, and someone is going to look into what might make a water elemental spawn.

Even with that assurance, Keris is humming with nerves for most of the last day. Of course, part of that might be because it’s also the day Sasi is due back, which she’d sort of forgotten about when she promised to meet them three nights hence due to losing track of the date a tiny little bit completely while following the ship back from the Lintha reef. She distractedly flits around the beach as evening starts to draw in, gathering firewood for cooking the... fairly substantial pile of fish and hoping very hard that the dark clouds to the northwest stay away and don’t make any loud noises near her aching head.

Keris finds quite a nice little inlet up the coast where some driftwood has naturally accumulated, snarled in a tidal rockpool. And there are tasty crabs in the rockpool, which Keris finds one nips her foot.

Naturally, she eats it with her leg.

It takes a few trips to drag all the driftwood to the same rough area that the last meeting was at - helped by the fact that her hair gives her something like three times as many limbs as a normal person - and she takes the time to stack the branches and chunks of planking semi-neatly. She leaves a small pile of squid near them on a brass plate from her Domain, ready for whoever shows up first.

The rest of the food, she keeps in her Domain for now. It’ll look a lot more impressive if she can literally pull them out of the air. Or her hair. One of the two.

That done, there’s really nothing left to do but don her disguise, retreat into the surf where the casual eye will skip over her, and wait for the first few people to arrive.

Keris succeeded quite well - maybe a little too well. She warned people off enough only maybe thirty showed up. She suspects they might not be the time wasters, that they’re serious. Or representatives of the misbegotten groupings she talked to.

She emerges from the surf as they cluster around the squid and start a fire, making vaguely discontented noises about how little of it there is.

The noises get a lot less discontented when they spot her walking up the beach from the surf wearing a dress of shimmering wavecrests and foam, and when a dark curtain of hair drifts across a wide, flat rock and leaves a heap of fish that comes halfway up to Keris’s knee on it, they peter out entirely in favour of awed murmuring.

This time, however, Keris makes sure not to repeat her initial mistake. She doesn’t preach from on-high - she has their attention now; no question about it. No, now she needs them to _want_ to follow her. To see her as a saviour, but also as one of them.

So she refrains from highlighting herself with inhuman beauty and stays on the ground, giving respectful bows to the elders and distributing the food with a smile. And it’s a genuine smile, especially since quite a lot of the kids came back. Probably because they really need the food. Regardless, their worshipful gratitude as she hands them their meals sparks a happy little glow inside her chest. She’s providing food. She can _see_ the expression she would have had only two years ago in the faces of some of the younger ones.

Instead of preaching to all of them at once, she mingles as the night goes on. As the fear abates and the respect grows, they slowly start to get... well, not exactly _casual_ about approaching her, but they don’t shy away when she approaches, even if they do seem as wary of offending her as a man handling firedust over a furnace.

And that’s enough to get them talking. Keris is witty and silver-tongued and beautiful, and it’s impossible not to get drawn in by her force of personality. Little groups form around her as she picks out people and charms them into talking - about who they are, what they like doing, what their stories are. So many of them are sad, so many are cruel tales of being cast out by those that should have loved them, or else growing up at the bottom of society like her. She weeps for them.

And if she assures them that they have value, that their families were wrong to treat them so? If she asserts that they deserve _more_ than this; that they shouldn’t have to beg for work just to get by? Well, Keris is a street rat no longer, but she still holds no fondness for the rich who she remembers from Nexus, who looked over the poor and the beggars without seeing them from their gilded palanquins. The sentiments are very much genuine, even if they do serve a secondary purpose.

Darling Yellow is not here, but her daughter - Precious Wave, Keris finds out her name is - is present. “My mother is old and sick - she needs her rest,” Precious explains. “I have come on her behalf.”

Keris looks at her sidelong. “There was - is, actually - a child who lives with me.” She pauses. “Well, in my home. I’m not there at the moment. She was very ill when I met her - dying from liquid coughs. I gave her a choice, and she chose to follow me.” She meets Precious Wave’s eyes. “I healed her. She’s healthy and happy now.”

... okay, Keris isn’t actually certain of that, since she hasn’t seen Piu in some time, but Piu’s cough had pretty much cleared up when they left, and she told Mehuni to look after them before going. Still, it’s probably worth visiting the next time she has a couple of weeks free.

“It’s not something you can take back, asking me to do something like that,” Keris adds. “But you might want to let your mother know that it’s something I can do.”

There’s a mix of hope and weariness in her eyes. “She is old, revered one,” Precious Wave says. “There is no cure for that.”

Keris nods, accepting that. “Not forever,” she agrees. “But some are old and sick, and others are old and... content.” Calley, for instance. Being old certainly never seemed to cripple her. “A person’s last years can be comfortable. And without sickness and pain, there’ll be more of them.”

“That... that would be good for her, revered one,” Precious Wave says softly. Keris doesn’t need to look closely to see the wariness in her eyes.

Keris nods. “It’s her choice, then,” she says firmly, and leaves the conversation there, moving on to a group whose enjoyment of the food and company has broken into music. Keris joins in with accompaniment for the rhythmic claps, and soon there’s singing and laughter rising from the campfire, as the feeling of community grows.

The fires are dying and the night sky above is filled with stars before things start to die down. A cynic would, of course, connect that to the fact that the food had run out.

Keris stands up, her waves-and-sea-foam dress rippling into lotuses and water lilies as she moves back to the water’s edge. She keeps it simple this time.

“Thank you for coming,” she says. “Thank you for letting me help you. And I hope that you see fit to help me. You know my name, and you’ve seen that I am generous.” She feels a flicker of uneasy amusement as she registers that particular phrase. It just sort of slipped out. Well, it’s not such a bad thing. The Shashalme _was_ generous to her, after all. It’s not a bad thing to be generous.

“Keep me in your thoughts, and I’ll keep you in mine,” she finishes, and steps back into the surf just as a wave curls in, breaking on the sand in a shower of foam and salt-spray.

By the time it’s receded back into the sea, so has the goddess called Riyaah MuHiitiyah.

She hangs around only for as long as it takes to make sure that they’ve all set off home in relatively good humour before setting course home, to where Sasi should, hopefully, have arrived back by now.

Keris can hear the sudden gossip when they think they’ve spent a suitable amount of time waiting after she vanishes. Certainly, all of them are willing to do this again if there’s more food - and they’re discussing taking more people with them next time.

Pleased with her success - though she’ll have to plan it more carefully if she does this again - Keris pours on the speed and all but flies across the bay to the City of the Steel Lotus, leaving vortexes in the water in her wake with the speed of her passage. She hesitates as she approaches the house, still sucking the saltwater out of her hair, and lurks nervously on the roof, unsure of whether she’s welcome or not inside.

((Let’s roll!))

Sasi, it transpires, is... not back yet.

Keris droops, and miserably pulls herself up to a chimney before going rigid. Wait a minute. Wait a minute! Sasi... Sasi isn’t back yet... and Keris _doesn’t have a present for when she is!_

Panic sets in, and Keris actually runs in circles around the chimney twice before her brain kicks into gear. How could she forget a welcome-back present? Argh, she’s so stupid! Wait, no, no. It’s okay, Sasi isn’t back yet, she still has time. But what to make?

She winds her hair into a rapid cat’s cradle, thinking frantically... aha! Sasi seemed to like the mosaic of Pekhijira that Keris made in her treasury room! She said it was beautiful! Same with the flowers from the Domain! So she likes art and pretty things and unique stuff that she can’t get anywhere else... which makes sense, because she can just _make_ money, so things she can get herself aren’t as special.

So Keris just has to make her an art thing. She smiles proudly at this decision, then wavers a little as she blanks out on what to make. But then, slowly, the smile returns as she looks down at her fingers.

“Dulmea?” she murmurs. “Have you still got the notes on those duets I was playing around with?”

((Cog+Expression to turn the half-finished experiments with harp duets into a love song for Sasi that Keris can, due to having like eight “hands” and as many mouths as she wants, play all by herself. 2+5+2 stunt+3 Time Strung Harpist+1 bonus {supported by mood or inner nature}+7 Kimmy ExD {beauty, charm}=20. _16_ successes, holy shit, lol.))  
((Uh. Yeah. Keris can... um, well. Probably invent a new little angyalka thaum ritual with that kind of working thing))  
((Hmm. Heh. Well, it’s basically how she wants to protect Sasi and make her happy and always content and pretty and feeling good, so the music may work like a massage, working all the tension from travelling out of her shoulders and so on.))  
((Heh. Yes, that works. Alternatively, it is flower-related because proto-Haneyl is taking form from Keris’ efforts and so her thoughts are being led to Metagaos.))

Sasi has not arrived back by the time Keris falls asleep, exhausted. Neither is she back by the time she wakes to the sound of the masses in the market. Thunderclouds are rolling in as the monsoon breaks, and in the distance Keris can already hear the distant rain. In the house, the servants are lighting the monsoon lights, even though it is not yet lunchtime.

This is the point at which Keris begins to get _worried_. She snarls at the oncoming storm and backtracks to where Sasi and she had said their goodbyes a little over a fortnight ago, pacing impatiently. She stays there for as long as she can before the rain and the _noise_ drive her inside, to slip through Sasi’s window and curl up on her bed with a pillow held over her head.

Where _is_ she? Keris is on the edge of sending an Infallible Messenger to her - heck, she’s half tempted to try and _follow_ an Infallible Messenger to her. Only the fact that she might blow Sasi’s cover in doing so holds her back, and that’s an excuse that is rapidly beginning to fray.

A clattering outside. The rain sweeps in. But underneath it, there’s another sound - that of a palanquin. And mercy be, it’s Sasimana, trying to get to the covered monsoon walkway without getting wet.

Keris is out of the window and onto the ground before her brain has actually caught up with her ears, and her hair is shielding Sasi from the worst of the rain by the time she registers that she didn’t actually let go of the pillows before leaping to her lover’s aid.

This fact is discarded - along with the pillows, which Dulmea catches half a second before they hit the ground - in favour of half-tackling Sasi into the shelter of the walkway, half-hugging her for dear life.

“Sasi Sasi Sasi Sasi Sasi! You’re back! You’re back you’re _back_ I was worried when you were late but you’re back and...”

The rest of Keris’s monologue is largely unintelligible as she buries her face in Sasi’s shoulder and cuddles her in relief and giddiness.

Sasi takes one look at Keris, and bursts into tears herself. “Did... did something happen to you, too?” Sasi whispers. “No. Not out here. Inside.”

Keris’s tension levels ratchet all the way back up, and she quietly drops several of her more lethally poisoned slingstones into her hair for rapid deployment in an emergency as she hurries Sasi inside, helps her up to her bedroom and then gets her sodden outer layers off her.

“What happened? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” She’s already examining Sasi for any signs of injury, nerves jangling.

Sasi swallows, hard. She’s shivering slightly, although Keris isn’t sure whether it’s from the cold or something else. “The convocation of the Gleaming Triangle... it was a set-up,” she says softly. “Someone called it to gather them all together. Get them all in one place. In Buk Moi.” She laughs, bitterly. “That isn’t there anymore. An army of waterlogged corpses surrounded it in the night. Began negotiations - but they already had a killer inside the gates.”

Keris has a very quiet heart attack.

After a while, she regains the capacity for speech. “This,” she says, only a tiny bit hoarsely, “is why I am going with you on anything like this that you do in future. You got away safely?” She looks Sasi up and down and frowns. “Wait, an _army?_ Was it another of the Exalted? A... another dead one, like the Ambassador?”

“I don’t know,” Sasi says quietly. “What day is it? I’ve been flitting from places to places in the night. They had demons, too. Killed my agata. I’ve been in shadow form for... for too long. It ruins your sense of days passing, because the light burns.”

“Twenty seventh Descending,” Keris replies absently. “Okay. Okay, right.” She swallows again, trying not to think of how close she’d come to... to maybe losing Sasi. Pushing the terror aside to burn and bubble into hatred for whoever did this, she focuses on Sasi. The older woman is even paler than usual, still shivering, and there are bags under her eyes.

“You,” Keris tells her, “are tired and cold and scared and upset. And safe now. Because if anything comes after you here, I’ll cut them into _bloody chunks_.”

She stops, takes a moment or two to calm down and force the snarl out of her voice, and continues.

“So, we’re going to think about this again and plan for what to do when you’re not any of those things anymore, after you’ve slept and calmed down and you can think clearly.” She pauses. “This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind for giving you your welcome-back present, but... I think it might help you feel better. Lie down.”

Sasi yields to Keris’s gentle-but-firm nudgings, and her eyes squeeze closed as Keris’s hair starts massaging her shoulders. Another lock pulls a harp over, and her hands start to pull chords from the air as she begins her love song; the notes resonating down through the hair massaging Sasi’s shoulders as Keris wraps her up in blankets and warmth and care.

“I’d normally be fine,” Sasi protests weakly. “I wasn’t really in much danger, as long as I had shadows to hide in. And,” she sighs, “I just... either the Red Moon didn’t know, or she didn’t care.”

“Any danger is too much danger for you to be in,” Keris insists, after a quiet pout that Sasi still seems too distracted to appreciate her music. Though she is relaxing, slowly; the tension leaving her shoulders. So that’s something. “And as for the Red Moon... well, actually, I suppose I have a way to ask her now. Uh. If I can find it again. We’ll need to get rid of whoever planned this, either- wait, no, sorry, this is Sasi-relaxing time, not planning-what-to-do time.” She hugs Sasi from behind. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I should’ve been.”

“Well, at least you got started on your attacks on the Realm,” Sasi says, obviously trying to change the topic.

Keris nods. “Yeah. That’s going well so far. Might need to ask your advice on a couple of things, but nothing that can’t wait. Oh!” She smiles proudly. “And I made a new type of serf. Partly to look after Rathan, but...” she lowers a hand to Sasi’s rounded belly, “they might be useful for her, too. They’re child-carers - I made them for it specifically.”

“I... see,” Sasi says cautiously. “Forgive me if, for the moment, I assume they’re perhaps better at looking after your souls than... ah, a mortal child.”

Keris looks vaguely hurt at that. “They’re not just... I mean... technically you helped. I made them with what you helped me remember. About how my parents cared for me when I was little.”

Sasi looks at Keris with a bit more of her normal attitude. It’s forced, it’s a mask, but she’s trying. “Keris, dear, there are other demons who like looking after children. Like marottes.”

This earns her a pout. “Well, I’ll make one later and you can see what you think. For now, though...” Keris curls closer to Sasi, kisses her, and sits upright. “Have you eaten? I can go grab you some food, if you want to get cleaned up and ready for bed. And then I’ll play you something to help you sleep.”

“I haven’t eaten, no,” Sasi says in a small voice.

Keris risks leaving her just long enough to track down one of the servants and advise they bring a meal up for their mistress - something easy and simple to eat after a long and tiring journey - before darting back to her and guiding her into a bath. She doesn’t bother with the lights; she can hear her way around and Sasi likes the dark better. Instead, she resumes her massage with a quiet wistful chuckle.

“You were doing this for me, back in Nexus,” she comments quietly. “Now I get to do it for you.”

“I’m tired,” Sasi whispers. “I’ve been running for days. Not wanting to be tracked. I didn’t want to lead them back to here.”

Keris strokes her hair. “It’s over,” she reassures. “You’re safe now, and even if they come, I’ll deal with them. Sleep as long as you like. I’ll be here when you wake.”

Yawning, Sasi curls up into a ball on her side of the bed and lets herself sleep properly for the first time in almost a week.


	16. Chapter 16

Keris is barely able to sleep. Even once Sasi has passed out from exhaustion, snuggling deep within Keris’ hair-embrace, she’s lying there, fretting. She’s worrying about a lot of things - and she doesn’t like worrying. Not one bit. She prefers to live in the moment. The future comes later. But more and more since she left the streets she’s had to think about bigger scales and bigger pictures, and when Sasi is in such a state, she can’t talk to her about it.

So instead Keris finds a comfortable position where Sasi isn’t leaning on her hair too heavily, and sinks into mediation. She can go talk to Dulmea-mama instead.

She enters her Domain at the top of the spire that rises above Dulmea’s domed palace, balancing at the very top with her hair and arms outstretched. Turning in a slow circle, she takes in her soul-sanctum.

Hmm. Echo had a point. There _are_ a lot more plants around. And she still hasn’t investigated that tree any further.

Well, she can do that later. For now, she lets herself gradually tip over forwards and runs down the spire, down the outside of the dome and in through a window, bouncing off the floor and coming out of a surprisingly graceful roll into a seiza position at the table.

...

... well, near the table. Ish. She scoots sideways on her toes and turns a bit to get the rest of the way there.

Has the spire got taller, Keris wonders. She isn’t sure. Well, regardless, she’s tracked down Dulmea from the constant noise she makes - it’s not exactly hard.

It appears, looking around the apartment, that Dulmea has been experimenting with painting. And the operative word here is ‘experimenting’, because... well, it’s not anywhere near as good as her music playing. She’s talented, yes, but it’s quite... um, amateurish. They’re watercolours of the landscapes, mostly.

The ones which aren’t... well, there’s one which is covered in hair and handprints from chubby hands, and there’s another which is generally speaking quite tattered. It looks like there may have been a familial painting day at some point, or at the very least Rathan got his hands and hair on some paint, and then Echo showed up and stabbed the canvas a few times.

“Was Echo proud of her painting?” she asks impishly. “It looks like a masterpiece to me.” She tilts her head. “Actually, I should probably get her some stone to try carving on; she’d probably like that better.”

“It kept her quiet,” Dulmea says drily, quirking an eyebrow at Keris.

Keris cocks her head. “Yeah, I can see how you’d have trouble with that,” she returns, equally dry. “Where are they at the moment, actually? Has my caretaker-deva been working?”

“Echo has been focused, insofar as she can focus on anything, on the plants,” Dulmea says. “I have found plucked and shredded flowers scattered around the area, and yesterday I saw what appeared to be flying lotus blossoms made entirely of ribbons, drifting through the air. Rathan... well, it certainly serves to stop him crying, although sometimes he gets bored and crawls or toddles away. He usually chooses those moments when I am trying to drink tea and freezes my tea for attention. And then giggles. He seems to find it hilarious.”

Keris is very, very careful not to let her lips twitch. She isn’t glared at, so she’s probably successful in that.

“She’s been fairly intent on them, yeah,” she agrees. “Did she tell you her Boss Plant explanation for the tree from a few days ago?” She pauses. “Actually, I’ve been meaning to try looking beyond the cyclone-wall for a while now. I’ll let her tag along and see if we can get through and see if there’s anything beyond it. A nice exploring adventure should distract her - and if we find anything there, she’ll probably flit around exploring it for a few weeks and give you some peace.”

“That would be nice,” Dulmea says wistfully. “Rathan merely wants attention and can be kept quiet by giving him that - although his dislike of fire is somewhat of an annoyance. I... I have problems with Echo and how she is kin to the Silent Wind.” She pauses. “Also, please request that she stop trying to wear my slippers. She just leaves holes in them.”

Keris hesitates, then goes in for a cuddle. It’s been a while since she last had a good hug from her mama, and she makes a happy little noise as Dulmea responds, albeit a bit slowly.

“You know she’d never actually hurt you, don’t you?” she checks. “I mean, she might hurt you a bit from touching you, but she’d stop right away. She’s not... her love doesn’t mean death like the Silent Wind’s does. The bit of her that’s kin to Adorjan is mostly her body, I think. The outside bit. Not what’s inside.”

... it occurs to Keris that maybe she’s not entirely talking about Echo anymore.

“She can be sweet,” Dulmea says softly, “but she is a force of chaos, child. One who can’t be driven off by music and in fact often pounce-murders those who play it. She only listens to you, so if she wanted to hurt me as she hurts my musicians, she could.”

“She listens to you!” Keris insists. “I mean... okay, not about things like ‘stop pounce-murdering my musicians’ and ‘don’t leave ribbons everywhere’, but that’s... that’s what she thinks of as play. If it were something important - something serious - she’d listen. I know she would.”

She disentangles herself from the embrace absently and starts pacing, struggling to put what she means into words. “She’s... both of them are my souls, right? And... and technically you are too. Sort of. Which I don’t really get, because you’re all you, so how can you all also be me, but Sasi seems pretty sure of it so I guess it’s true. And if she’s part of me, then she’ll do what you say when it matters, because _I_ will. You’re...”

Keris pauses again, this time looking thoughtful. She opens her mouth a few times, starting to speak, and stops each time before getting any words out. Dulmea watches cautiously, unsure of what’s going on in her pseudo-daughter’s head.

Eventually, Keris nods to herself.

“Okay. Okay, I guess... maybe I should make it more formal?” She flashes Dulmea a quick grin. “You like things to be formal. I should’ve thought of this a while ago.”

With a few quick paces, she crosses the room to the model of her Domain in its silver bowl; perfect in every detail. She kneels beside it in perfect seiza, and carefully begins plucking a melody from the air with her hair. Her hands, however, stay free. She twists one of them, and one of Ascending Air’s blades falls into it.

Very carefully, Keris opens a cut on her index finger with the cold terne blade. She reaches into the bowl to just outside the miniature cyclone, her sleeve fluttering in the wind, and traces a circle of blood around the model.

“ ** _I am Keris,_** ” she says in Kimberian-accented Old Realm, leaving off the matronymic for once and choosing her words carefully. She pushes her Essence into the circle of scarlet, feeling the tinge of Sorcery in the air.

“ ** _This is my Domain, and all that resides within it descends from me,_** ” she declares. “ ** _Those that live within it are my souls or my serfs. Those who granted me my powers ceded it to me alone. Within this world, the Law comes from me._** ”

She takes a slow breath, the words coming faster now; more from instinct than careful planning. “ ** _Then I decree this so: my adjutant in this realm is my Fourth Soul; Dulmea. Except for me and the serpent that guards the border of my souls; there is no higher authority here than her. All must heed her words, or face the consequences._** ”

The line of blood flares briefly with light, then settles. The red circle remains, no longer liquid on the bowl’s surface but instead a line of crimson-stained metal as though the silver itself had been dyed. The magic in the air shivers once more, then settles to a contented hum.

Dulmea shivers, a compulsive twitch running through her hair. “You... you’d give that kind of power to _me?_ ” she asks in disbelief.

Keris smiles at her, sways slightly, and sprawls over to the left. “Ugh. Wow. That felt... weird.” She shivers in similar fashion, then smiles up at Dulmea again. “And yes. Like I said, you’ve basically been in charge here since here was a place. I just made it... official.” She climbs back to her feet and stretches. “Hopefully Echo will listen more now. A bit, anyway. Though I think it won’t go beyond the line in the bowl, so if we find anything beyond the cloud wall she’ll be able to run around and do what she wants out there.”

Dulmea’s lip wobbles. “You actually meant it, too,” she says quietly. Swiftly, she turns and stares out the window, and the flecks of red visible in the stormwall. “Those weren’t there before. You... you changed your soul. For me.”

Keris hugs her. “You’ve done more for me,” she says warmly. “If not for you, I wouldn’t even still have a soul to change. Why wouldn’t I trust you above any other?”

“Because I’m a serf,” Dulmea says in a tiny voice.

Keris draws back and looks her over critically. “You _were_ a serf,” she says, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “I was a mortal. I know at least one of those isn’t true anymore.” She cocks her head. “Is Echo a serf? Or Rathan? Or the snake?” Her lips twitch. “I’d love to see someone try to tell it that. From a distance.”

“I... I don’t know,” the once-angyalka says softly. “I... I have dwelt in this place for almost a year now, child, and before that I was a bodiless spirit within your mind. My flesh has changed. And this place conforms to my wishes. I shape it. And I can spawn lesser demons, as if I were one of the Second Circle. But... I was spawned as an angyalka.”

“I was born mortal,” Keris reminds her again with an intent look. “And now I’m a Peer of the Althing and a Princess and one of the Exalted. I know that the sublimati can grow and change, and serfs can become citizens - and that’s just normal life in the City, without an Exaltation involved. It might be rare, but... serfs can grow in power, and they can grow in status. And if Exaltation can change a mortal into...” she waves vaguely with her hair, indicating the Domain and their life in general, “... then couldn’t it change a serf into something more as well? You Exalted as much as I did, in that cocoon.”

Dulmea swallows. “The idea still scares me,” she admits. “In the City, one of my kind who rose above their permitted station faced the attention of the souls of the Demon Princes. Lucien would hunt and slay sublimati - everyone knew that. They could slay you at a whim and face no censure, while if a sublimati were to kill a soul of a Demon Prince, they would not truly die - and the sublimati would seal their own doom.”

Biting her lip, Keris considers what she knows of demonic law, which isn’t very much. “Well... the way I see it,” she starts, “slaying you would mean slaying me, and I’m of equal status to the citizen-souls, so they can’t kill you for rising above your station if it’s only as far as the Second Circle. Except that there can’t be a crime that the Law of the City _can’t_ punish. So if they can’t punish you for rising to the level of those of the Second Circle, then by definition you’re allowed to be there.”

She considers that for a moment longer and nods. It’s slightly circular logic, but the Law she’s had experience with tends to be. It all comes back to strength, in the end. Keris is more valuable as a Peer and an Exalt than punishing Dulmea would be worth, so the Unquestionable would probably - she thinks - decide to allow it. Probably.

“I mean, it might be a good idea not to go _shouting_ about it,” she adds. “But this is my soul; nothing gets in or out without my say-so. So in here, it’s up to me.”

((... heh. This is going to be put to the test as soon as she gets Titanic Heart Overweening.))

Dulmea swallows. “And you were prepared to make it so. And the Demon Princes themselves tasked me to guide and lead you. But that was just a command from one of them. You... you accept me as your second, and you are a peer of Hell.” There’s a rumbling noise from the tower. “I am your soul,” she says, softly. “And if you desire, I can be a mother to you - even if I don’t have any prior experience with such things.”

Keris throws herself delightedly into a third hug - and Dulmea doesn’t just hug back this time, she meets her halfway. They stay like that for some time - Keris isn’t sure how long - blissful and happy and united as one.

They’re brought out of the mother-daughter embrace by the sound of something expensive-sounding smashing on the marble floor. Keris can almost hear the silent and not-very-apologetic “oops” behind her before she turns around.

Echo spreads her hands extravagantly, indicating her complete and utter lack of knowledge as to how those fancy tea cups might be on the floor and that the world would indeed be harsh and cruel if she were to be blamed for it. She then points at Rathan, who has toddled over to poke his head through the doorframe and is hanging onto the door, also watching them, and quite definitely makes it clear that it is entirely his fault.

For some reason, Rathan bursts into tears. Echo nods, and suggests that it’s probably because of guilt.

Keris gives her a flat look. “Uh huh. Right,” she deadpans, moving to pick Rathan up and tickle him until he stops crying. “Well, if you apologise to Dulmea-mama for accidentally letting Rathan wander into the teacups, I have an adventure that you can come on.” She glances down at a slightly happier Rathan and reconsiders. “That you can both come on. It’s an _exploring_ trip. Sound fun?”

Echo scuffs her feet on the floor and tries not to look too enthusiastic. Her nonchalant shrug suggests that, yes, maybe exploring might be fun. Perhaps.

... especially if there are ribbons.

“We’ll be exploring what’s beyond the cloud-wall,” Keris says, baiting the hook. “You can stay in my hair so you don’t get blown away - I know you haven’t been able to get in very far all by yourself. It’ll be a place you’ve never been able to explore before. Who _knows_ what we might find there?”

Echo’s shoulders slump down. Her hand gestures suggest that she already knows what you find there. You find mean grumpy snakes and strong winds which blow you away and then you get all dizzy. She smiles, and obviously remembers that being spun up around by strong winds is a lot of fun, especially when you time it right and manage to jump out and go flying through the air and Keris should learn to fly, by the way, because flying is totally sweet.

Keris grins. “I’ll think about it. But what about beyond _that?_ I don’t think the cyclone goes on forever. I think there might be something on the other side. That _isn’t_ wind or snakes. Or wind-snakes. Or winds of snakes.” She pauses. “You are not allowed to make a wind made of snakes,” she adds, just in case.

Echo holds up her crossed fingers, and solemnly swears she’d never do such a thing.

“Well then? What are you waiting for? Tell Dulmea-mama you’re sorry about her teacups getting broken, and let’s go!”

Echo accepts that mistakes were made and that cups were broken, although she crosses her arms and indicates it’s very unfair that people are blaming her when it was really Rathan’s fault and actually he’s just eating all the suspicion towards him with his moony magic so everyone thinks it was her, rather than him.

Keris gives Dulmea a last hug, then scoops Rathan up in her arms and beckons Echo to follow her to the edge of the Domain. It seems a little... different, somehow, but she ignores that for now in favour of getting where she wants to go.  Echo, in contrast, runs ahead and gleefully spins around, revelling in the way that it’s totally bigger now.

Keris skids to a halt at where she’s pretty sure the wall used to be and blinks. She’s... right. The fog has receded. So has the wall. Her neighbourhood is now more of a... well, a town. Maybe even a small city!

“... I knew it!” she crows. “It _can_ get bigger! There’s _gotta_ be something beyond the Wall, then! Echo, let’s go!” She can explore her new territory later. For now, she has _more_ new territory to get her hands on. Or, uh. Soul on.

The wind-storm is no less intense for its increased circumference. It howls and it screams with the fury of primordial wind. Or possibly that’s the snake. Keris skids to a halt at the edge of the border wall, bare feet on worn marble crenellations once again.

“Pekhijira!” she calls, naming it. “We’re not here to steal this time! We’re here to see what’s beyond the wall - to expand your territory!”

There’s no response. Maybe it’s leaving Keris alone. Or maybe it just wants to lure her in for amusement.

Keris purses her lips, shrugs, and beckons Echo closer. “Into my hair, Echo,” she orders. “I know you like it, but if you go flying off into this I probably won’t be able to keep up. Stay close.” She curls a couple of hair tendrils around Rathan to anchor him more firmly in her arms and shelter him somewhat from the gales.

Echo wants to know, from her expression, why Keris has brought him, the destroyer of cups, along. He’s probably just going to cry and be _loud_. Again.

“He’s your little brother, Echo,” Keris admonishes. “Be nice. He’s coming along because it’s been a while since he’s seen me, and he wants to explore too. And also so that if there’s anything else like the big snake out there, he can make us look innocent so it doesn’t try to eat us. Right, Rathan?”

She tickles him under the chin, and gets a “Mama! No!” in response. Which... isn’t all that encouraging, but she’s pretty sure he’s not actually refusing, it’s just that he really likes the word.

Echo pulls a face, but accedes. But there better be ribbons in this for her, her expression says.

Taking a deep breath, Keris teeters on the edge of her soul-sanctum for a moment; her Fifth and Sixth souls clinging to her, her Fourth watching from above.

Then she darts down the wall and into the storm.

Wind buffets her from every direction. Silver shapes - shoals, she realises - swim through it, singing to each other in clear, high voices. The ground is as chaotic as the air - streams and solid ground and marsh all intermingled. Something snaps at her from one, and she gets a brief glimpse of many jaws in a reptilian mouth before it’s gone. She can barely see. Her hearing is overwhelmed. She certainly can’t smell or taste anything through the mayhem. For the first time in quite a while, Keris is running blind, reliant entirely on instinct to keep from making a misstep.

She keeps running.

The wind gets stronger. It should be lifting her up off the ground entirely, she knows - only the preternatural grace and balance of the Silent Wind keeps her on course. If she stops for even a second, she’ll be lifted into the air and flung who-knows-how-far.

She can feel Echo shivering in her hair. They’re already further in than the wind-waif has ever managed to penetrate. She’s pretty sure Rathan is crying, but she can’t hear him over the howl of the storm. Turbulence buffets her - but was it the displaced air from a vast shadow moving past her, or just an eddy in the hurricane and her tear-soaked eyes playing tricks on her?

She keeps running.

She’s starting to wonder if she was actually wrong about this horrible place going on forever. She tries to tally how far she’s gone into it already - the time she’s been running, the speeds she can reach - but she can’t grasp them. She might have been running for a minute or so, or for hours. Or for days. The screaming, screeching noise makes it impossible to keep track of time, or even think clearly.

She’s not even sure she’s going in the right direction anymore. Or whether the right direction is out or back into the Domain. Or which way the Domain even _is_.

She keeps running.

But she’s beginning to panic a little.

She keeps on going, but to no end. There’s nothing but the wind. Nothing but the feeling of forcing herself into nothingness. Nothing but the way her heart is pounding in her chest and her body _hurts_ , like she’s being pulled apart or put on the rack. The pain is just making her eyes blur more, and there’s a red corona to her vision.

((Lower of Conviction or Valour to keep on going against the pain))  
((Both 3. And... shit. Botch. Seriously? BOTCH? Now? Fuck that, I’m paying a point of wp for a success; Keris _refuses_ to give up after coming this far - especially since she’s not even sure if she can _get_ back at this point.  
Though in any other circumstance that botch would have been hilarious. Heh.))  
((You know you’re usually meant to declare WP expenditure before? But I’ll allow it))

Gritting her teeth, Keris wants to turn back. There’s nothing out here. There’s seriously nothing out here. Just the wind. Just nothingness. She’s just forcing herself into nothingness, and all she’s gaining is... nothing.

But on she runs... and for what? She could turn back any time.

((roll, but at +1 diff))  
((... roll Conviction again, you mean? Hmm. Well, I’ll spend another wp to cancel the Diff, aaaand... holy _shit_ , 4+1= _5_ successes. Evidently the dice fairies felt apologetic; two tens.))

The pain doesn’t lessen. Indeed, it increases, but Keris resolve grows faster than it. Rathan’s wailing is almost audible over the storm and Echo is shaking like a waifish leaf, but Keris won’t let nothing beat her! She won’t! Even if her chest is really, really hurting now.

((Roll again, at another cumulative +1 diff))

Gritting her teeth, she screams defiance back at the wind, lowering her head and sprinting as fast as she can, determined to get past this... this _hell_ and find something _worth_ struggling through it for. She won’t lose! There _will_ be something beyond it! There has to be! This is _her_ soul and _her_ territory and _she commands it!_

((3+2 stunt=5. Aaaaand 1 sux. : S))

But in the end, the nothingness wins. She flags, she stops progressing, and then the gales simply snatch her off her feet and send her swirling and spinning into the air, tossed like a rag doll. Around and around she’s tossed helplessly, unable to do a single thing and so confused and so lost she doesn’t even know what way is up and which way is down.

But finally the wind lets her go, and she plunges down, down, down, dropped from a great height.

This she remembers - leaping off buildings makes for good practice when a broken ankle is a death sentence. Keris tucks her feet in, curls protectively around Rathan and keeps her legs loose and limber, ready to absorb the shock of landing and divert it into a forward roll.  She lands heavily, and with a splash, in some kind of... wet, soggy swamp. Her ankles are aching, but the soft ground took most of the fall.

Echo detaches herself from Keris’ hair, and staggers around. Her expression seems to suggest that she’s had quite enough adventuring for one day. Meanwhile, Rathan... has actually stopped crying, now that he’s underwater in a dirty swamp.

And... uh.

Dulmea’s tower is literally miles away.

Keris blinks. Then blinks again. Then turns in a slow full circle to make sure that she is, in fact, seeing what she thinks she is seeing.

Yup. There’s Dulmea’s tower, waaaaaay over there in the distance.

And there’s the cyclone wall. Uh. Quite a ways in the opposite direction.

And she’s... in a swamp.

...

She is pretty sure her Domain did not previously have a swamp in it.

“Echo? Did my Domain used to have a swamp in it? Or be this big?”

Echo tilts her head, and frowns. She doesn’t seem to know what a swamp is.

Keris waves around her. “The soft soggy stuff we’re sitting in. With trees. And mud.” She hefts a handful of mud in demonstration and throws it at the nearest tree, which eats it.

“...” says Keris, eloquently.

Echo perks up. Oh! The boss tree has some ground like this around it, she gestures happily.

Keris looks around her warily. “I... think it has a lot more now,” she says. She pulls Rathan up for air, and he comes up with pulled-up water-plants in both fists and a bunch of hair. He appears to be trying to chew on them, and after briefly checking that none of them are trying to chew back, Keris cuddles him absently and closes her eyes, opening herself up to her surroundings.

“... yeah, it’s bigger,” she confirms almost immediately. She can _feel_ the increase in the size of her soul-sanctum, like a pot that’s suddenly got much more water in it. “And... not all the same. There are three sort of... poles. We’re near the marshy-hungry... oh. Oh, right. This one feels like the All-Hunger Blossom. And then...” She points, eyes still closed, “ _that_ one feels like the Great Mother, and... _that_ one feels like the Silent Wind.”

She opens her eyes to Echo’s interested look, and grins. “Yes, like you. Why don’t you go see what it’s like over there? We’re pretty near the edge of the marshy bit, and from what I’m feeling, this isn’t a little domain anymore, it’s a whole empire. Miles and miles and miles for you to run around in. Just remember to come back and tell me what... it’s...”

Echo is already an excitedly bouncing red blur beyond the nearest stand of trees.

“... like,” Keris finishes, feeling vaguely abandoned. “Well, _you’re_ not going to run off on me, are you?” she asks Rathan, looking down at him. “... no, sweetie, that’s bark. You can’t eat that. Sometimes you drink it, but you don’t eat it.”

Rathan tries chewing on it regardless. When Keris looks closely, she can see little pearly teeth pushing through his gums.  “Oh!” she realises brightly. “You’re teething!”

Then Keris remembers both babies she has been around during the teething stage; one while laid up with Calley after her arm got busted and the other when she was sharing a den with Rat and a pair of sisters; the elder of whom had a baby son.

On both occasions, there had been screaming. Lots and lots of screaming. Keris vaguely remembers that there were things you could do to make the screaming stop, but she cannot for the life of her remember what they were.

“... oh no,” she realises, with considerably more dread. “You’re teething.”

((oh rathan. His pearly whites are... literally pearls.))

Keris can’t hear anything. She can’t see anything. But still, the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Something is watching her. She doesn’t look around sharply or go for a weapon. But she does tense subtly. “Okay then, sweetie,” she says, tapping Rathan on the nose. “We’re going to explore some more, does that sound fun?”

“Ma ma! Duh-mea!”

“Good boy.” She kisses him on the forehead.

Then she takes a running start and launches herself into the tree branches, flickering across the twigs and leaves - not towards the city in the distance, but towards the slender thread of water falling upwards into the red moon in the sky, slightly closer and towards the Kimberyish bit of her newly expanded Domain.

She reaches it without incident, and takes a moment to raise an eyebrow - there’s a small cliff that would normally have a waterfall coming down from it, but instead the water is flowing _up_ to the rocky cauldron at the base of the slight rise and then rising up into the sky from there. Keris leaps into it from the branches and deposits Rathan in the centre of the current with a kiss. He giggles and flails happily in the water.

“You go up to your moon and have a look at your new territory, okay?” she tells him. “I’m going to see what was watching us. Be a good boy, okay? Don’t rain on Dulmea.”

“Duh-mea!”

That done, Keris breaks out from the current and - with a couple of near-misses and one jarring impact - lands in the trees once more, looking back to check on her son as she lands.  Rathan appears to have learned the art of hair-swimming. He’s... um, remarkably fast. Like a toddler. Who is also a squid.

Keris waves at him as he shoots upwards, then turns her attention back to the woods, dropping down to ground level. She proceeds back towards the area she came from, ears alert for any sound.

“Hello?” she calls softly. “I know you’re still out there somewhere. Come on out, I’m back again.”

The branches rustle. This, unfortunately, isn’t much help in this place, where the trees constantly move. Especially when Echo is playing nearby. And what she’s playing is ‘peel the bark off the trees’.

Keris raises an eyebrow at her. “I thought you were going to go and explore the Silent Windy bit?” She motions over in the general direction Echo had bounded off in, noting with a sigh that the trees look slightly sparser there than they did before she had bounded off through them.

Echo opens her mouth in a silent ‘o’. She nods. She hair-shrugs, blaming the boss tree for distracting her by being tiny and all grey and then runs off again.

Keris blinks a few times. “The boss tree? Wait, you mean... but why are you making out like it’s shorter than... right, you’re gone. Again.” She sighs. “I swear I’m not that distractible,” she complains to the world at large. “Well, usually.”

Once Echo is gone, Keris hears another rustling. It’s quiet and somehow muted - she’s hearing a noise which is so quiet it almost shouldn’t be there. She can feel the watchful eyes, too. She considers for a while. On the one hand, she’s definitely being watched. On the _other_ hand...

... several pieces fall together, and Keris hums thoughtfully. On the other hand, Echo has been talking about the Boss Plant like it’s a person. Or maybe another soul? And Echo _did_ have a stint of following her so closely Keris couldn’t even get a look at her, at first.

“I think I’m going to stroll back to the city,” she announces to the trees and herself. The not-noise doesn’t-sounds somewhat more attentive at that. “And maybe see how Dulmea is doing.” Suiting word to deed, she turns and sets off at a casual walk, staying slow enough that Sasi could keep up with her without effort. If this is another soul, it’s probably not as fast as Echo can be.

... of course, that means that getting back to the city is going to, uh, take quite a while.

Keris hears the noise trailing after her, as she strolls through the fens. She smiles. From the sound of the footsteps she irregularly hears, it seems that her mysterious onlooker is rather shorter than her and thus is having to jog to keep up. That’s why they’re more audible. They also seem to not just be moving along the ground, as easily moving between ground and tree as... well, as Keris might.

“This is a very nice forest,” she comments to herself. “Very pretty. I bet whoever lives here must be very pretty too.” She’s gambling a little there, but Echo seemed to refer to the Boss Plant as being a ‘she’ like her, and Keris is willing to trust her on that.

((Do de do, rolling Haneyl’s Valour))

Keris feels the world around her _twist_. Something is happening... over to her left, yes, and something is taking form. She stops walking, slowly letting her gaze wander sideways to see without spooking it.

It’s not a person here. No, it’s a glade. An open space in the fens, where gnarled ancient-looking trees grow, moving despite the lack of wind. Keris sees artistry in how they’re placed, along the edge of the narrow pathways which criss-cross the water. They’re heavy with flowers, and some of them are budding strange, pale fruit. And then there are the smaller flowers floating on the water. Except they’re not exactly flowers. No, their petals are made of burning green fire.

“... oh _wow_ ,” she breathes, moving closer without thinking and kneeling to examine one of the fire-flowers on the water. She looks around, smiling open-mouthed in childish wonder. “Oh, this is... _beautiful_.”

There’s a pattern to it, she realises, and tries to picture the glade from above as she moves towards what she thinks is probably the centre.

The tallest tree in the glade is in the centre, with all seven winding paths running to it, and there’s something about it which looks familiar to Keris. She frowns, trying to put it together. And then it clicks. The tree looks sort of like Dulmea’s tower. Just smaller, and put together by someone who’s only ever seen it from a distance.

Keris smiles. Her little watcher isn’t quite willing to show herself, it seems, but it looks like she likes hearing about how pretty she is. Maybe she’s shy. Keris brushes the bark of the Dulmea-tower tree and laughs quietly.

“I’m sure Dulmea would love to see this,” she says. “She’d probably want to have a tea ceremony here; it’s a gorgeous place for it.” She puts a finger to her lips in mock thought. “Maybe I should take her something back? Hmm. Oh! I know, I’ll take her one of those beautiful green fire-flowers. I bet she’ll like that a lot.”

A flicker of movement catches Keris’ eye. There’s a girl up in the tree. Was she there all along? Keris isn’t sure. Almost no one can hide from her like this. She lets her gaze rest near the girl, not looking at her directly in case she gets scared. “Is that okay?” she asks gently. “You’re very good at hiding, by the way. Better than anyone else I’ve met except Sasi. Maybe even better than me.”

The girl just stares silently down at her. She’s very young, Keris thinks. Maybe four or five at the most. She’s wearing a sundress which seems to be made of leaves, and that’s almost the only colour on her. Her skin is pale as porcelain, her long hair - done in a hime cut, and also gripping onto the branches - is grey, and her irises are a splash of vivid Ligier-green that almost glow from within.

In fact, she looks... quite a lot like Sasi. And it’s not the colour alone. There’s a Realm-like slant to her eyes, and she has Keris’ lover’s stubborn jawline and pointed chin. But her cheeks and her forehead are... are Keris’...

Keris gapes for a second. And then several more seconds, until the girl starts to look uncomfortable and fidget and fade into the branches again.

“No no no, wait, hang on!” Keris babbles, stumbling over words, “Don’t go, I was just surprised at how pretty you are! And... oh, darling, you look like...”

Like her and Sasi, she doesn’t say, because she still can’t quite believe it. Like a little girl born from both of them. Sasi is going to... is going to... okay, Keris isn’t actually sure how Sasi is going to react to this, but it’s all _she_ can do not to burst into song and cartwheel around the clearing and hug her newest daughter until she wakes up again.

Only the fact that it would probably scare the little girl away stops her, and even then, some of what she’s feeling must show on her face. The little princess cocks her head, eyes intent on Keris, and then she’s gone as suddenly as she was there.

Keris sits in the garden for a few more minutes, calming down a little. Then she goes to collect a bouquet of fire-flowers from the water and sets off Dulmea-wards. She’s fairly sure the little girl is still following her, though she’s being a bit more careful about it now.

All in all, it takes the better part of an hour’s walk to get back to the city, and Keris stops at the edge, blinking.

There’s a red line in the soil just outside the city walls. No, wait. That’s the wrong phrasing. There’s a line _of_ red soil; a bright arterial scarlet band about a foot wide. And not just soil. Keris can see where it crosses a stony outcropping, and the rock seamlessly changes from greyish to sanguine and back again. In fact...

Keris transfers the flowers to her hair, bends down and squints at the stone, then licks it with one hand. Yeah. Yeah, she’s right. There are characters in the band - slightly darker red than the rest of the colour; almost impossible to see in contrast, but present nonetheless. She licks them again, tasting the shape of the difference in shade.

... it’s her declaration of Dulmea’s authority. In Old Realm. Transcribed over and over and over again.

... well then.

“It’s safe in here,” she calls back to the nearest stand of bushes, though that’s more a guess than an accurate estimation of the girl’s location; Keris lost track of her ten minutes ago and hasn’t picked her back up since. “Dulmea is in charge here. She’s your grandmother; the one in the big tower.”

The much bigger tower. It looks like a giant harp now; with the spire forming the pillar and three soundboards splayed out around it like flower petals; with strings leading down to them from the elegantly curving necks that reach out from the uppermost floors.

Keris steps through the city gates and heads in to meet her mother.

The patter of tiny feet follows her, and Keris feels a little hand grab the back of her dress. A little hand and a few locks of hair. The little girl looks up at her solemnly, biting on her lip, and hesitantly offers Keris her other hand.

Keris feels her face bloom into a beaming smile, and takes it gently. She offers the girl the bouquet of fireflowers.

“Do you want to carry these? They’re your present for Dulmea, after all.”

The girl looks at her blankly. Keris is suddenly hit by a worry that she isn’t sure if she knows how to talk. Or maybe she’s mute, like Echo? Except, no, her feet make noise.  She offers the girl the bouquet and smiles encouragingly. “I’m sure she’d like them, coming from you,” she prompts.

The child snatches them up in her hair, cradling them. She doesn’t let go of her tight grasp on Keris’ hand, either. Keris slows down enough that she’s not struggling to keep up, and they stroll towards the tower, both looking up with interest at the music echoing out from the huge strings. Keris laughs in wonder as she realises that each of the three enormous harps that share the tower as a common column is playing a different tune - three songs that blend together into a single rich and complex melody.

There’s also a rising platform thing inside that removes the need for stairs, which Keris is instantly taken with.

“So,” she begins as she enters the - rather larger - chamber at the very top of the spire. “It turns out there _was_ something beyond the cloud wall. And it was more cloud wall. But also a small country.”

Dulmea shakes her head. “No, child,” she says. “There wasn’t anything beyond it.” Her lips are thin. “Do you know what you were doing when you... you were running out into nothingness? To this place? How the world shook and rippled and even tore?”

Keris pauses. “... tore? How? Wait, no, something can’t be nothingness and then be _there_. There are trees and forests and rivers out there; they can’t just have...” Belatedly, she remembers who is clinging to her hand - and hiding behind her, she realises - and shakes her head. “Uh, can we talk about that later? There’s someone who’d like to meet you. And has a present, don’t you?”

She steps aside, and gives the little girl’s hand a very gentle tug forward.

“When you were running into the fog, you were pushing the fog-wall outwards,” Dulmea says softly. And then she refocuses on the little girl. “She looks like Princess Sasimana,” she says softly. “And you. Keris, child... how?”

“Go on, sweetie. She’s nice,” Keris urges, leaving Dulmea’s question hanging in the air for the moment as she prompts the little girl forward. It’s getting sort of difficult to keep her eyes on the girl, and she’s clutching the flowers in a white-knuckled grip as she stares at the once-angyalka.

Keris throws Dulmea a quick, imploring glance over the child’s head. “She does, doesn’t she?” she says. “Isn’t she pretty? And she made me a gorgeous garden out in the woods. I was very impressed.”

The child doesn’t seem to want to hand the flowers over. She’s just clutching them tightly.

Keris bites her lip and shoots Dulmea another imploring look. ‘Say something nice,’ she mouths, hoping Dulmea can lip-read. ‘She’s shy.’

“Hello, little one,” Dulmea says. “I am Dulmea, the coadjutor and fourth soul of your greater self. Can you speak, or are you too young for that?”

The little girl bites her lip again. She opens her mouth, and a collection of nonsense-syllables come out. She tilts her head, waiting to see if that gets a reaction.

“Well, you’re still little,” Keris says, patting her on the head. “Your brother and sister can’t really talk, either.”

A sullen expression appears on her face. She tries again, in a rather more strident, demanding tone.

Keris quirks an eyebrow and exchanges a glance with Dulmea, before kneeling. “Hey, little one, it’s okay. You’re doing very well just being able to make the right sounds to make words. And you understand us, right?”

Her tiny hands ball into fists, and she almost shouts another string of meaningless words. And then promptly bursts into tears, a pink tinge of frustration highlighting her pale cheeks.

Working on by-now half-developed childcare instincts; Keris draws her in for a cuddle. “It’s okay, sweetie,” she soothes again. “How about this; you can give Dulmea your flowers if you want to, and then I can read you a story and you can practice saying words from it. Does that sound good?”

((keris-mama is just too soft))

Sobbing in frustration, the girl latches on to Keris neck and doesn’t let go. She just cries into the front of her dress. She doesn’t seem to want to let go of the flowers, though.

Keris lets her cling, cuddles her and murmurs little reassurances to her, stroking the little girl’s hair with her own. She glances up at Dulmea and speaks quietly.

“She’s a new soul - the one Echo was talking about; from all the plants. I’m... not sure why she looks like Sasi, though.” She purses her lips. “Rathan looks a bit like Rat, though. And I suppose Echo is half me, half... uh...”

She cuts that particular train of thought off there and goes back to petting her... seventh soul? Wow. That’s a little weird to think of. She has seven souls now, including this little girl.

Gently, careful not to jar her, Keris reaches out and starts playing a soothing lullaby in the hopes of calming her down a little.  She eventually dozes off in Keris arms, sucking on her thumb.

Dulmea stares at Keris. She has one eyebrow raised. It is super effective.

“... Echo’s out exploring,” Keris tells her hurriedly, hoping that enough rapid volunteering of information will make the eyebrow go down again. “She’ll probably be a while, even as fast as she runs. Rathan’s up in his moon, looking at everything. I’ll go get him down before I wake. And this little one was in the woods, spying on me. She followed me back here, though she was pretty shy about showing her face.”

“Another soul?” Dulmea says, saying what apparently she’d been holding in for a while. “Another child?”

“Yeah. I... I can’t be _sure_ , but I think the odds are pretty good that she’s the tree that I planted from my, uh, head, back at the Lintha island.” Keris cocks her head. “While I was missing Sasi, come to think of it. Maybe that’s why she took the form she did.” She glances up at Dulmea warily. “She, uh, doesn’t seem as needy as Rathan, though. And she seems better behaved than Echo. Apart from the crying, I mean. She was more shy than anything, out in the woods. It took her a while to work up the courage to show herself.” She strokes her daughter’s hair some more, combing the fine grey hair with her own red locks.

“We’ll talk later,” she says. “I suppose I can see if I can help her learn to speak. Maybe this one might be better behaved than the other two.”


	17. Chapter 17

Keris wakes late. Very late. In fact, it’s past noon.  Her head, much like her Sixth Soul, is swimming. She sits up, considers for a full second, vaguely recognises the sensation of her head being too full that followed her meeting with the Silent Wind, and falls back over again.

“Ow,” says Sasi in a somewhat muffled manner.

“Srry,” Keris mumbles, and shifts off her, overestimating the movement somewhat and continuing it off the edge of the bed. After a brief pause, her hair follows her.

“... ugh,” she complains. “I think I have soul-sickness.”

“You must be ill,” Sasi agrees, sounding just as exhausted as Keris feels. “You slept longer than me, and I haven’t slept properly in a week.”

“Not... not that type of sickness,” Keris says, standing up, swaying and stabilising. “Like... like sea-sickness. Only, uh. Only in your soul. I mean my soul. Or from my soul. Souls.”

“Um,” Sasi says intelligently. “I think I need more sleep. Or you need more sleep. Or we both need more sleep.”

Keris considers this, which takes a while. “Yeah,” she decides. “Yeah, more sleep. Wait, no. Order food so we can eat as soon as we wake up. Then more sleep.”

It in fact turns out to be somewhere in the region of evening that Keris wakes up again, this time rather more quickly as her stomach reminds her that she hasn’t eaten in almost a day. Shocking and perhaps blasphemously, Sasi has actually got up before Keris today.

... not very far, admittedly. Honestly, she’s just sitting in a chair reading.

“Keris,” Sasi says, one eyebrow raised, “are you aware you have mouths moving under your skin?”

Keris musters up enough balance and grace to sort of flop out of bed towards the light spread of food on the table, which seems to be put together from an assortment of breakfast and evening foods.

“Fooooood,” she moans, and gets most of the way to the table before realising that her hair can reach the rest of the way. She sits down on the spot, and a wave of fang-lined hair descends on the plates Sasi hasn’t already finished.

Once her stomach is fuller and the tabletop is empty, she perks up considerably. “... Sasi!” she exclaims happily. “You’re back!”

Sasi, by contrast, does not look perky. Even by Sasi’s usual standards of not-perkiness. “Yes, I am,” she says glumly. In fact, she looks... ill, to be honest. She’s still pretty in Keris’ eyes, but her hair is lank, her skin is... grey rather than fetchingly china-like, and she has big bags under her eyes.

((... uh, okay. Rolled Compassion 3; 3 sux, and Temperance 2 - _4_ sux. Wow. So, uh. Apparently Keris’s worry over Sasi’s state is enough for her to more or less keep a lid on her current loopiness.))

The faint feeling of her head being half-full of water sloshing around recedes somewhat as Keris focuses on her lover, and she makes her way over to where Sasi is sitting, using her hair as support-limbs to keep from wobbling. Sitting down at her feet, she hugs Sasi’s legs and rests her head in her lap.

“You’re safe now,” she reassures her again. “It’s over and you’re safe, I promise. And you got away, too. You were escaped it even though it was a trap.” She squeezes gently. “What can I do to help?”

“I don’t even know if it was a trap for me,” Sasi says in a tiny voice. “I don’t know who was behind it. I... I _hate_ this.”

Keris nods. “Okay. So we find out. That’ll make you feel better.” She chews a hair tendril, vaguely aware that the rest of her hair is slowly moving to hug both Sasi and the chair she’s sitting on in some sort of attempt to help. “That’s sort of not-right-nowish though...”

She thinks for a moment and nods firmly. “Distraction, then. You need a distraction. Something else to think about. So you can do stuff you like doing. That isn’t this.”

Putting her book down, Sasi rises and slumps down on the bed. “I spent a week hiding from monsters who managed to blindside me,” she says glumly. “I nearly died. It all went wrong. And I have a baby pressing on my organs and my body is playing up and I’m worrying about whether she’s all right because I spent longer as the shadow as I ever had before and... and I don’t even know if a baby grows when I’m a formless shadow so maybe that pushed my due date back even _further_ and... and...” She trails off. “I have a lot to worry about,” she says.

Keris holds up a finger, then puts down the finger. Then holds up the finger again. “I could help with at least one of those things,” she points out. “If you wanted me to, I mean.” She motions towards Sasi’s midriff and the now-noticeable bulge of the baby there.

Sasi’s hands move to protect her midriff. “You are _not_ trying to extract her before her due-date,” she says harshly.

Mouth opening and closing a couple of times, Keris gapes at her. “I... meant listening to see if she’s okay,” she stutters, leaning away. “I wouldn’t... I’d _never_... you really think I’d try that?”

Sasi sighs. “It’s been nine months. I _really_ wish she’d just hurry up,” she says glumly. “The others were all done by now.”

Keris squeezes her legs again, still feeling hurt but willing to put it down to Sasi being grouchy. “So, um, do you want me to?” she checks. “I can probably get a good idea of how she is in there.”

Sasi sighs. “Keris, I can feel her,” she says. “And she’s not _injured_ , but I can’t help but worry about the exposure to ophiadian essence for that long.”

“Oh. Right, yeah, you have your touchy... thing.” Keris leans her head back down into Sasi’s lap and listens hard, just in case. The baby isn’t moving around at the moment, but she can still hear the little heartbeat and the ebb and flow of blood around the tiny body.

Satisfied that she at least can’t hear anything that sounds particularly wrong with the baby, she relaxes again.

“But I still think you need something to take your mind off things,” she continues, picking up where she left off. “All those things are important, but... Sasi, you look awful. You’re...” she clings tighter unconsciously, “you’re paler than usual and you look really tired and you can’t... you can’t _fix_ things unless you take care of yourself first. You need... I dunno, something interesting and fun that you can pick apart and work out and win at.”

Sasi runs her hands through her hair. “I don’t have time,” she says to Keris, as if talking to a child. “I’ve already been out of contact for this meeting. Now I have to answer to the Red Moon and explain what happened. I need to prepare for whatever she orders me to do next. I need to keep up to date with my other tasks. And I need to deal with the entire problematic situation developing with Deveh.”

Keris frowns, and stands up to look her in the eye. “Sasi,” she repeats more firmly. “You’re not going to be able to do any of that if you _collapse_. Which you’re going to, if you try to do everything at once while you’re all tired and...” she waves at Sasi, “stress-wobbly.”

She sighs. “My head is way too confused for this. Look, how can I make it, you know, easier on you?”

“Keris, do you think the Red Moon will listen to such things?” she asks.

“No,” Keris growls, and pauses to take a deep breath and rein in her temper, “which is why you should _let me help you_ with some of the other stuff. That’s what I’m here for. I can at least help with Deveh. My stuff is going... is going. I can take some time off it to help you get back on track, and help find out who did this and murder them, and anything else that needs doing.”

Sasi sighs. “I don’t know if I’ll regret this,” she says, almost to herself, “but... I think you might be able to help me by getting me a few days to get back together and start finding things out. But to do that, I need more time to find some answers that the Red Moon wants to hear. So she needs to be... mmm. ‘Served’. Find something she would want - but I don’t know, because she’s so... so darn inconsistent.”

Keris cocks her head. “... would a demesne do?” she asks. “Only the Lintha have one. Aspected to her. And they have no idea what it is.”

Sasi exhales. “Keris,” she says, “... _how_ did you even find that?”

“Well after you went, I wasn’t exactly welcome _here_ ,” says Keris matter-of-factly. “So I decided to go explode Dragon’s Jaw, only then I noticed a Lintha ship, so I stowed away onboard and it sailed to a demesne-harbour that tasted of Ululaya where I sort of made an agreement with one of their commodores who thinks I’m a Lintha noble or something, and when I mentioned the Red Moon to him he had no idea who I was talking about - oh, I fed Rathan some Essence from it by meditating at the bottom and now he’s a bit older and he can talk, sort of! Well, he can say “mama” and “Echo” and “no” - and then I got a bit lost coming back here so I’m not totally sure where it is, but I could pretty easily find it again by contacting the commodore.”

She nods in satisfaction at this clear and logical chain of events. “Oh,” she adds, remembering, “and I probably need to know more about the Lintha, because I was mostly winging it at the time. Hmm. Maybe I could pray to the Great Mother for guidance? Probably couldn’t hurt.”

“It is always wise to venerate the Demon Sea,” Sasi agrees. “The consequences of not doing so are...”

“... ill-advised,” Dulmea completes.

Keris winces. “Yeah. Anyway, then I came back here and did some other stuff in Dragon’s Jaw until you came back, but the demesne is definitely out there. They’re using it as a harbour, and they’re idiots. They haven’t done _anything_ with it. I don’t think they even know what they’re sitting on.”

Sasi smiles. It’s a tired, weary smile, but it’s a smile. “Oh, Keris,” she says fondly, “you’re right. They’re fools. You’ve come a long way that you can make these kinds of geomantic observations.”

Keris preens. “So would that do? I can... hmm. Probably meet with Lintha Gajui Narooj and get him worshipping her as a soul of the Great Mother. He seems very devout.”

Sasi frowns. “You know,” she says, “it does rather confuse me that they don’t... hmm, worship her souls more. I wonder why that is. I haven’t really paid much attention to their culture, but... that is odd.”

“I’d tell you if I knew any more than you did. I think...” Keris hums, thinking back to her meeting with the Lintha. “I think they’re almost too... primitive? Too crude to know enough to do so. They have demons pulling their ships, but they’re just beasts. Giant thrashing worms and mutated seals and stuff.” She sighs. “Compared to the Lintha I read about back in Malfeas, they were a disappointment, frankly. I was intending to get partners for attacking trade ships. As it is, I’m more going to be using them to deal with the crews while I deal with the real threats.”

Sasi reaches out and brushes Keris’ hand. “Just be careful,” she says. “I know Unquestionable Madelrada has plans for them.” She raises her eyebrows. “I say this not knowing of any greater plans you might have,” she says meaningfully.

Keris nods. “I told him it might be a while before I can call on him,” she agrees. “Hmm. Actually, I think she was one of the ones behind my orders to wreck trade, so she might back me in making use of them. I’ll pray to her and ask permission.”

She shakes her head. “Anyway, not the point. Would the demesne be a good offering to the Red Moon to buy you some breathing room? They’re not using it, and I didn’t really have any plans on taking it for myself.”

Flicking her grey hair, Sasi considers. “She would probably prefer some kind of prayer or sacrifice there, to dedicate it to her,” she says clinically. “We run the risk of her demanding a manse be built there, too.”

“I had Narooj eating out of my hair,” Keris assures her. “I can get him making _weekly_ sacrifices there in her honour without much trouble. The manse might be trickier, though. I don’t have any idea how they’re built.”

“I am... I’ve studied the theory,” Sasi admits. “I haven’t done it before. And they take a lot of time and a lot of manpower.”

“Hmm. Well, if we’re lucky, frequent sacrifices might please her enough that she doesn’t demand a manse.”

“I hope so,” Sasi says wearily. She pulls herself to her feet. “I need to minister to some of my followers,” she says self-mockingly, “and then I’ll be back in a few hours, to go to bed again.”

“Have fun,” Keris replies, kissing her on the cheek. “Don’t wear yourself out too much.”

“I intend to keep it light,” Sasi says, heading in the direction of the baths. Keris has poked through her bathroom and found her collection of makeups and face paints. She’s sure Sasi will be left looking fine.

Left to herself, Keris ponders what to do until Sasi gets back. Well, she mentioned praying for guidance. She may as well start on that. But if she’s going to pray to the Great Mother, she should probably sacrifice something. Something pretty... hmm. Artwork, then. Something she can sacrifice... maybe a painting?

A short hunt and a query to the servants does indeed turn up materials for the ink-wash paintings that Tengese culture seems to like. Keris is a little clumsier with them than she is with a musical score, but the Lintha are still fairly fresh in her memory, and she embellishes a little to make them look more beautiful and elegant. Soon she has the outlines of the scene down; a ship riding the crest of a wave that drowns an island chain at its base, crewed by gorgeous children of the Great Mother that have the kings and lords of the world in chains at their feet.

Well, uh. It’s a masterpiece. A slightly scary masterpiece Keris decides, putting her brushes down after a few madcap hours of spontaneous genius. Sasi isn’t back yet, so she squirrels it away in her Domain for safe keeping, leaves a note by the bed saying that she’s gone to make a sacrifice to the Great Mother, and heads harbourwards. Sitting curled up on the ocean floor, she takes it out and - not without a hint of regret - lets the seawater soak into it, the ink blurring and diffusing out into the water. A current takes the coiling wisps of ink, and the crumbling remains of the paper that held them; whisking them away to the ocean that all others eventually drain into.

“Great Mother,” she prays in the Old Realm that always comes so much more naturally beneath the waves, “your children, the Lintha, honour you. I would walk among them and serve your will; turn their ships against your enemies and bring you glory with their blades. But I don’t know their culture or their ways, and they won’t trust me unless I do. Please, oh Kimbery, empress of the waves unending and gracious mother of all; guide me in my dealings with them.”

((3+5+1 Spirit-Charming Supplicant+1 bonus {spirit’s name and title is known}+2 stunt+8 Kimmy ExD {brokering deals, discerning eye, secrets}=20 @ TN 6. 12 sux, wheee~))  
((Okay, well, you’ve got her attention. Ish. As much as something like that applies.))  
((Valid for tutoring in lintha-history-and-culture Lore style via vivid flashback dreams?))  
((Which will take... what, something like three to six weeks?))  
((Benevolently, Kimbery will permit this if you pray to her allllllllll night and she’ll keep the mad visions and dreams coming))  
((Also, accept a 2-dot principle of Kimbery (daughterly obedience) from BRAINCRAMMING of her LOVE))  
((So generous~))

For a short while, nothing happens. No shapes burning in the water, no currents, no whispered words or demon appearing to tell her what she wants to know. Keris sighs a little cloud of bubbles. Maybe the picture wasn’t good enou-

The memories hit like a tidal wave. And much like a tidal wave, there are so many of them that Keris can barely make out anything but the most basic details. They’re... they’re not her memories. She’s not sure whose they are, in fact; they seem to be drawn randomly from a hundred different time periods in Creation’s history. She remembers...

_ she remembers the age of glory, when the lintha sailed proud-beloved-regal and ruled the seas in their mother’s name _  
__  
_ she remembers horror-calamity-defeat cast down and destroyed by cruel golden blades _  
__  
_ she remembers sin and the curse of blood, base cannibalism and banishment to the sargasso sea _  
__  
_ she remembers lintha ng oroo and bluehaven, the unbreachable stronghold of the lintha _  
__  
_ she remembers kan pol and the utz semivir, dukantha and the great mother’s chosen _

She remembers a lot of things. Most of them she forgets again as soon as she registers them; water through her fingers in the tidal roar. But some things remain. A basic understanding of the Lintha; a rough feel for their society. A chilling realisation of how narrow an edge she must have been balanced on when Narooj caught her hair-tendrils tasting his flesh.

It’s only when she hears the distant clanging of the fishing fleet that she begins to recede from the thought-foam. That’s... weird. It’s late evening; the night fleet should already have left, why is she... oh. Keris cracks an eye open, and... yup. They’re not going out. They’re coming back in. She must have lost track of time. It’s morning.

Though physically rested, Keris is still walking in a not-entirely-straight line as she makes her way back up to Sasi’s house for breakfast, blinking owlishly at the too-bright morning sun.

Sasi has resumed a more normal sleeping cycle, thank goodness. Well, more normal for her. Which is to say, she’s still fast asleep. Keris pats her hand vaguely and tries to snuggle up next to her and get some proper sleep; a tactic that runs into the slight problem of not being at all physically tired, and in fact feeling strangely energetic. After buzzing around the room for a while trying to find something that can hold her attention, she eventually growls in annoyance and starts work on another art project; this one a picture of her three children all sitting at Dulmea’s feet with her po-soul’s sinuous form arching over them all as a page border.

Chewing on her brush idly, Keris decides to use some of her hair instead. It’s much more precise. She does have to stop herself eating too much of the grey ink she uses for her new daughter’s hair, though. It’s very delicious ink. She considers getting some of her own as a snack. And also maybe for more painting, since she can’t just keep borrowing Sasi’s all the time. Okay, getting two supplies of her own. It’s nearly midday before Sasi stirs, moaning, and burrows her head in the pillows. And then she sniffs. “Ink?” she mumbles. Keris realises that, yes, the room does smell quite inky.

“Sorry,” she whisper-calls over. “I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to do some painting.” She pouts. “It’s not as good as the one I sacrificed, though.” Wise to what Sasi is usually like in the mornings, she fetches her some tea as Sasi struggles against the hated force of having-to-wake-up-properly.

It only takes ten minutes or so before Sasi is willing to take her head out of the pillow, tempted by the tea. Keris’ lover isn’t quite as much of a tea obsessive as her mother-demon, but they could probably exchange notes.

((... oh hey, stunning as that previous Temperance roll was, it’s probably worn off by now, and Sasi isn’t looking so run-down anymore. Sooo... Temperance 2; FAIL. Whee, soul-shock loopy bipolar-mood-swing Keris is on a happy ride.))

Keris giggles happily as she sips it, picking out the similarities to both her mother and her daughter. Oh, hey, that’s a good point! Her little one’s grandmother is a tea-lover, and so is her mother, so will she be?

... also she really needs a name, Keris realises. One floats to the surface of her mind almost immediately, and feels right enough that she accepts it. “Haneyl,” she says, trying it out and tasting the word. “Haneyl. Haaaaaneyl.” She nods happily. Yes, that’s a good name. It will do nicely.

Sasi sips her tea. “Hmm?” she asks. “Keris, you’re... saying things.”

“Yup!” Keris chirps happily. “I’m _naming_ things! Thing. Person. Soul. Daughter.” She shakes off the list of corrections and returns to what’s important. “She’s so sweet! And sort of shy. And cute! And tiny! And sweet!”

Sasi takes a long, slow sip. And then very, very carefully puts her cup down on her side table. So she is not holding it. “My dear,” she asks, warily, “whatever do you mean?”

“We have a new soul!” Keris translates, in a tone that suggests that this should be obvious. “And she’s adorable. And I’m naming her Haneyl.” She gives Sasi a challenging look. “I get to name her ‘cause I had to give birth to her. Through my face. While she was still a tree-seed.”

“I don’t understand,” Sasi says, rubbing her eyes. “It’s too morning for this.”

She’s lying there. It’s basically midday.

“Is not,” Keris tells her. “It’s basically noon. And look, see?” She presents the mostly-dried painting for Sasi’s perusal, as proof.

Propping her head up on her hands, Sasi takes in the picture. “Ah, yes, the giant snake,” she says dryly. “And the... the red figure, that would be the Silent Wind child, and that’s your coadjutor and... and the baby is your personal Red Moon and...” she pales. “Keris,” she demands. “The one who _looks like me?_ Tell me.”

“New soul,” Keris says, using small words since she has to make allowances for Sasi given that it’s only just stopped being the morning. “Called Haneyl. I think she’s from the Marsh. She’s a shy little tree-spirit.” She pauses. “And, um, yes. She’s yours.” She smiles shyly. “That’s probably why she’s so pretty.”

Sasi turns ghost-pale. “Mine?” she asks faintly.

“Child,” Dulmea notes, “she is here right now, with me. She came back again in the night, when you were communing with the Ocean. She is... much better behaved than the others. And yes, child, I have given her tea. She has not broken the cups at all.”

Keris sends a bright feeling of pleased ‘I told you so’ back at Dulmea, and cocks her head at Sasi. “Yeah. Uh. More or less. I mean, she’s my soul, but she’s pretty obviously part-you as well. She’s been getting ready to be born for a while now, and she finally came out while you were gone. Though she hid for a bit after that, and only showed herself the night you got back.” She gives Sasi another tentative smile, starting to realise that Sasi... doesn’t seem to be as pleased about this development as Keris is.

Actually, that’s putting it lightly. Sasi is paler than usual, and shaking slightly. “I can’t be... be a father,” she says faintly.

“... you aren’t,” Keris says. “You’re a woman. That means you’re a mother, and you were already one of those.” She gestures at Sasi’s midriff again, and the baby curled up there.

“They... she’s your daughter,” Sasi says, “and... and she looks like she’s four. Four.” She’s shaking worse than before, and she’s breathing like she should be crying. But she’s not crying.

Except, Keris remembers, Sasi can’t cry real tears anymore.

Concerned now, she tosses the painting back onto the table and moves closer, hesitating to touch Sasi when she doesn’t know what’s making her cry. “Sasi? What’s... what’s wrong? Why are you... did I do something? Is she...” She recoils from voicing the awful thought of Sasi not wanting the beautiful little girl having tea with Dulmea - from even thinking it; her mind flinches away before she can finish the thought. “What’s wrong?” she repeats, starting to shake herself.

Sasi clings to her tightly. “I miss them so much,” she whispers, heartbreak in her voice. “M-m-my youngest. When I last saw them. She was that age. N-now she’s... she’s almost t-ten and... and she probably d-doesn’t even _remember_ me. As... as far as the story went, I... I just v-vanished.”

Keris’s heart breaks a little as she remembers. Sasi is so in-control most of the time, so _present_... sometimes Keris forgets that she’d had a family. Had children who... who she’d lost, because she never mentions that part when she talks about them at all. Like she’s trying to avoid a wound because it hurts too much to touch.

She moves closer - not to hold Sasi, just to be a warm solid presence - and softly starts playing an aching, bittersweet tune of loss and grief and sympathy, letting the emotion spill out into the air instead of staying bottled up and pressurised within.

“I can’t even,” Sasi says something in a language Keris can’t understand, “cry anymore. I can’t cry about it. I... I don’t mind the blessings of the Desert m-most of the time, but I can’t cry for real. So it just stays bottled up inside, and... and... I get scared I might have to leave her too,” she whispers, resting one hand on her midriff.

A tear splashes down on her hand, and she looks up to find that it came from Keris; crying for her. There aren’t any words that can fix such fears, and Keris doesn’t try any. She just keeps playing, drawing out through music what can’t escape through tears.

“I... I’m sorry,” Sasi says, wiping her dry eyes, “I... I’m just a bit wobbly. You... you shouldn’t have had to see that and-”

Keris puts a finger over her lips. “It’s okay,” she whispers. “I get it. Believe me, I get it. I never even really knew my family, and I still missed them. Still do miss them, sometimes, even with Dulmea. Don’t be sorry for... for _caring_. For being a person, instead of all blank and clear inside like Deveh.”

“Don’t think I don’t love you too,” Sasi says softly. “I... I do. Just like I love Testolagh. But... but we were married for over twenty years and I had four children by him and... and I still love him. He... he loved me too. Even though I... I was getting old and plump and saggy while he was still young. It was comfortable. I... I didn’t ever get waterlogged corpses trying to eat me.”

“Loving a new person doesn’t make you stop loving those you loved before,” Keris says in a small voice. She thinks of pale skin and pale hair and laughing words, all tied around by a scarf of blood-red silk.

“Mmm.” Sasi leans into her, and is silent for a while. “I... I don’t know if there’s a way to do it,” she says, “but... but if one of your souls is my daughter in some way, I’d... I’d like to meet her some time.” She swallows. “It’s... it’s quite a declaration of love that you’d make... m-make part of me part of you.”

Keris blinks. Then blinks again, straightening a little as her eyes go faraway.

“... huh,” she says, more to herself than to Sasi. “That... um... hmm. Well, it... hmm. And that sort of worked. I mean...” She chews on her lip, thinking. “I don’t... think it will work on her, exactly, as she is now, but... it’s worth a shot, I suppose? It worked the first time.”

Sasi looks confused, and Keris draws a breath of real air. This probably isn’t going to help her head-swimmyness, she is aware, but on the other hand her head is already swimmy so how much worse can it get?

... okay, maybe she shouldn’t think things like that. Something might take it as a challenge.

**_“I am Keris,”_** she says in Old Realm, repeating her proclamation to Dulmea. Her caste mark flares on her forehead, and she can feel a prickling around it. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see herself in a mirror; the empty green brand glowing on her brow... and a tracery of red and blue and grey spreading out from it in a thousand tiny capillaries across her face, crisscrossing in a complex knotted pattern that weaves itself into a boundary and mirrors itself at every angle.

**_“... I am Keris,”_** she repeats, and feels the tracery pulse and glow; more lines creeping down to her chest and arms and back with glyphs and symbols amidst the patterns and lines. **_“All that reside within my souls descend from me. My Domain is my territory; my land, and I set the laws that govern it.”_** The brand pulses again, and the magic builds in the air around her. **_“I decree from this day forward; this woman,”_** she touches Sasi on the brow, just where her own caste mark would form, **_“may summon any of my souls and serfs that can leave their homes to heed her call...”_** she hesitates for a moment, but continues, **_“... and may command my serfs as an authority beyond them.”_**

Her caste mark flares once more; green light rushing down every capillary, and then only the empty wheel decorates her forehead again, seeming somehow duller for the lack. Keris feels rather proud that, save for a slight feeling of dizziness, she remains sitting upright this time.

Sasi stares at her. “Keris,” she says, for what seems like the... the many-th time recently. “What did you just _do?_ ”


	18. Chapter 18

“So,” Sasi says, nursing tea after an explanation. “Do I have this straight? You dreamed yourself into your inner world. You declared your coadjutor was in charge. Then decided to find out what was beyond the fog wall. By running into it, carrying two of your souls with you.”

“Mmm.”

“You ran for a long time, but then got blown away. When you landed, you found you’d pushed the edge of the world back...”

“Several miles.”

“Yes. And then you found yourself in a swamp, where apparently a new soul of yours who is...” Sasi looks somewhat confused, “also a ‘boss tree’ and also apparently my daughter showed up. And she is born of Metagaos and Malfeas unified _somehow_ and she is very shy and you left her with your coadjutor who is now giving her tea and teaching her to speak?”

“She hasn’t broken any cups yet,” Keris offers. “Dulmea says she’s very well-behaved. Not like Echo or Rathan.”

“Yes,” Sasi says. “And... now you have _permanently changed your soul structure_ so I can summon your demons?” She pauses, and sighs. “Or more likely, I am capable of doing so once I work out a way to invoke your inner world and its laws with my authority, because my existing ways invoke the Desert and her laws and... I am not sure if she has jurisdiction over that place.” She pauses, paling even more than usual. “Which is something _neither_ of us will discuss with anyone, do you understand?” she asks. “And you will grant no one else such access to your inner self. I’m... I’m flattered you trust me that much, but I don’t know what oaths you could be trapped in if you did that with anyone else.”

Keris pales to a similar extent. She’s seen what life is like for serfs bound under the laws of the Endless Desert. The prospect does not appeal. “No more oaths,” she agrees shakily. “I didn’t...” a brief pause, but she sighs and decides that she might as well finish - Sasi seems to have completed the sentence herself as it is. “... think.”

Sasi shakes her head. “I really don’t know how you do these things,” she says almost quizzically.

“Instinct, luck and not knowing I can’t,” Keris says firmly. “Least, that’s what Ra- that’s what I always used to get told.” She eyes Sasi carefully. Well, at least the other woman isn’t crying any longer, and seems to have been neatly distracted from her grief by the puzzle Keris has laid in front of her.

Her plan has worked perfectly then, Keris congratulates herself, resolutely ignoring the fact that she’d had no such thing in mind when she’d started her impulsive oath-binding.

((Oh, Sasi. Vice: Explorer.  
Keris: “Yep! We’ve certainly explored vices together!”))

Sasi pinches her brow. “I’m going to have a bath,” she decides. “Then I’m going to have to start preparing for the Red Moon.”

Keris tilts her head. “He’s sti- oh right, yes. I’ll... hmm. Start writing up what I remember of her worship, I suppose, so I can pass it onto the Lintha.” She sighs. “More writing. Yay.”

Sasi offers Keris her hand. “Well, come on,” she says archly. “I need someone to pay me proper attention after a week on the road, and perhaps thank you for all the kind things you’ve offered to do for me.”

“I did offer to do lots of things for you,” Keris returns, her eyes glinting playfully. “I can’t seem to remember all of them, actually. Maybe you should remind me.”

“I’ll need to work on my positive reinforcement,” Sasi observes.

Unsurprisingly, the bath winds up taking rather longer than one would strictly expect it would take for two women to get clean. Though Keris does come away with a very complimentary impression of Sasi’s ‘positive reinforcement’.

... that’s probably why it’s called that, honestly. Sometimes Keris wonders why Sasi really has so many baths, when she doesn’t sweat. Maybe it’s a habit. Maybe she’s just fastidious. Once they’re finished, she curls up with a blank scroll in a corner of the office Sasi is using to prepare and begins summarising the basics of the worship of Ululaya in careful Old Realm. She gets about two lines in before remembering Narooj’s accented and fragmented command of the language, sighs irritably and starts over in Firetongue. Which she’s not as good at writing.

Urgh. Stupid Lintha and their stupid non-fluency in real languages that she’s good at.

The bare essentials are simple, and she struggles as best she can through the language barrier to express how Ululaya is a cherished and powerful soul of the Great Mother; a captivating moon of crimson ice born of Her waters. Worship of the Red Moon is something Keris is less sure of. Certain things are almost always the same in praising the Demon Princes, and she can reconstruct some of the rest from remembered snatches of scrolls and what she knows of Ululaya’s nature.

That still leaves a lot of gaps, though. Keris fills them in two ways; inventing rituals that should both please Ululaya and be acceptable to the Lintha, and...

“Sasi, how did her fifth symbol go? The squiggly one that looks like an octopus holding a fork.”

“... you mean the crowned wave?”

“Yeah, that’s the one! I can’t remember which way the tines go.”

“... an _octopus holding a_ \- no, never mind. They curve outwards, dear. And please, I have a lot to do, could you be a little less distracting?”

“Sorry.”

Oh well. That just means she has a bit more improvisation to do.

((3+2+1 Spirit-Charming Supplicant {technically for Presence, but this almost certainly counts since it’s instructions}+1 Style bonus+2 stunt+5 Kimmy ExD {demands payment, talent for temptation, and the nature of how she’s tilting it towards Lintha-friendly means of worship means it’s probably disturbing art, too}-1 penalty=13.  
...  
... _4_ successes? The fuck, dice fairies? I hate you, die in a fire.))  
((Probably shoulda taken the successes. : P ))

It is merely an entirely passable work which might grace the shelves of any scholar, written with the finesse of a mortal expert in the field. There are only a few mistakes. Probably. Which Keris frets about a little, but Sasi seems even busier than she’d been when Keris was asking questions, and not in the mood to be interrupted.

She can ask Sasi to check it over later, maybe. Yeah, that sounds good. Now, where to meet Narooj? It took about three days to get to the reef, so if he’s in that general area she can’t exactly ask him to meet her tomorrow. No, she should probably send him a message tonight and arrange a meeting a week hence or so.

... she should also probably choose somewhere she’s relatively sure she can find without getting lost.

Eventually, after some careful examination of her maps and growling to herself about how it would be easier if he had a dratted Cherub Shrine of his own, she picks a spot some fifty or sixty miles south down the coast from the Bay, around the mouth of a river whose source her maps put somewhere in the Domain of the Serpents Who Walk As Men.

Retiring downstairs to the cellar, she greets Firisutu fondly and sends a cherub out to Lintha Gajui Narooj, bidding him meet her at the rivermouth in five days time, on the fourth of Ascending Fire, to hear news of the Great Mother’s bidding.

((Hmm. Roll to see if he can make it. 6 successes! He will be able to. I... don’t think he has any way of telling Keris that, though?))  
((He does not. That’s why she gave him five days on the assumption that he was probably somewhere around the reef, plus another two for good measure.))  
((Oh, Keris. It does show that she is not much of a sailor and does not realise how much faster she is than most boats.))  
((“Most”?))  
((What the hell kind of boat goes faster?))  
((... other than a literal Hell Boat, which I suppose might have something like Landscape Travel.))  
((A few first age things and Lintha demon ships, yes.))

“So, um,” she pipes up after finishing and returning upstairs. Sasi... still looks busy, but slightly less _aggressively_ so. “It’s the new moon tomorrow. Are you going to do any Sorcery?”

Keris feels invisible hands run their way across her face. Sasi doesn’t turn to face her, instead merely sitting there working away at an incredible rate with her telekinetic control. Nevertheless, Keris feels her attention and feels held. “Yes,” Sasi says. “I intend to summon Haroo, the Pearly Lighthouse. The Indulgent Soul of the Blood Red Moon.”

“Can I watch?” she asks, perking up. Seeing Sasi summon is always impressive. And... well, she knows that sometimes it can go wrong, especially with those demons more powerful than mere serfs. She’s not going to see Sasi hurt so soon after escaping an ambush that brought her to the brink of a breakdown.

Sasi strokes Keris’ hair. “I would appreciate it,” she says kindly. “I do not intend to bind them, and thus they may be a little... erratic. Still, keep far back from the summoning circle and...” she pauses. “There is something we could do to offer as chimerage,” she says, mostly to herself. “Haroo is... hmm, one who likes to be offered young priests or priestesses less than twenty one summers in age who worship other deities, so he can lure them to him. It would do nicely if we could procure him one as an arrangement to negotiations. Unconscious would be quite fine.”

Keris purses her lips, considering. “Be dangerous to take an Immaculate,” she muses, “but, hmm. The temples to the Golden Lord aren’t quite as strong down here in the shore lands. Yeah, I can manage that.”

Keris lurks around the Golden Lord’s temple for a while that evening. Actually, she lurks inside them once or twice, since she has to get close enough to taste a few of her targets to check how old they are, and winds up having to discount three in a row for being older than twenty one.

Eventually, though, she settles on a young, earnest-looking man - boy, really - of about her age. Her heart twinges uncomfortably at that, reminding her that delivering him into the hands of his enemies to have potentially terrible things done to him is... not so dissimilar to her being thrown in that Nexan cell.

... but it’s for Sasi, and it’ll make this Haroo happier and less likely to hurt Keris’s beloved. And that’s all the reason she needs.

Dedicates to the Golden Lord are not, strictly speaking, supposed to have romantic or sexual dalliances, though Keris is fairly sure a blind eye is turned towards minor affairs. Regardless, the youth’s dedication to this principle is in no way prepared for a petite, grey-eyed vision in silk and flowers to ask him, blushing fiercely, if he could tutor her on a few elements of scripture that she wants to understand in more depth. He eagerly shows her to a private room, shivering as her braid - as wide as his spread hand and falling to her ankles - brushes softly against his bare skin.

He’s unconscious less than a minute later, a deep green tint still lingering on her skin where her hair touched him. A minute after that, they’ve departed soundlessly through the window, leaving no trace that they were ever there.

Sasi smiles widely at Keris when she brings him back and hides him down in the basement. “Thank you very much,” Sasi tells her. “I couldn’t have done it so easily without you.”

((She’s hitting Keris with a 12 success ‘thank you so much, look how grateful I am, he’s just a cultist of the Golden Lord’ Per + Presence attack.))

Keris blushes again - genuinely, this time. “Well, you asked,” she says, ducking her head and looking up at Sasi through her lashes. “And it makes you safer. I’d do a lot more for that cause.”

((... heh. Actually, it’s sort of easy to forget sometimes that Sasi isn’t the only one who can wield her beauty like a hammer. Let’s see how well Keris does on a roll to remind her that two can play at that game - or rather, that Keris loves her dearly and does so much for her and asks only for Sasi’s love and affection in return.  
3+5+3 Cerulean Paramour+1 bonus {targets who believe you to be sincere}+2 stunt+4 Kimmy ExD {charm, endlessly giving, demands payment}=18. Bah, only 6 sux, possibly not enough to penetrate her MDV. Heh. Though still an amusing nudge.))

Sasi smiles at that. “I do appreciate that a lot,” she says, going back to painting her nails crimson. Keris notices she’s wearing a very unusual garment by by her standards. Everything is some shade of red, and she’s wearing red lip paint and eye-liner. Her hair is tied back with red ribbons. Her hands and face are decorated with a curving wavy pattern of red henna in Old Realm, some of which Keris recognises as prayers to the Great Mother. “Please don’t smudge these,” she adds hastily.

Keris pouts at her, but raises her hands obediently and retreats to the shadows, where she sits down, makes herself comfortable and becomes an entirely unremarkable shape cast by the light on a rough patch of wall.

“Not this room,” Sasi says, leading Keris down to a lower room. “Please take the sacrifice with you. I’d do it myself, but I don’t want to smudge the henna.”

Sasi has prepared this lower hidden room rather differently. Keris is awed by what Sasi has done. Somehow she’s transmuted all the walls into pearl. All of them. And there’s now a pool in the centre of the room, filled with water. The pearl around the pool has been replaced by channels of silver sand, and candles have been arranged at each of the points of the many-pointed star, so the entire room gleams with opalescent fire.

Once again, Keris is reminded of the beautiful things Sasi can do with her Pyrian magic. It’s so beautiful down here, and she must have prepared this in the past day or so.

“Lie him down in the pool, but don’t let him drown,” Sasi says, looking at an egg-timer full of silver sand. “We still have half an hour until sunset.”

Keris tucks the boy down, making sure not to touch the water herself and to leave his head supported at the edge of the pool. Then she spends the next twenty minutes or so cooing in awe at the pretty pearl and wondering how to make a room like this for Rathan.

Sasi takes a deep breath and paces up and down, working her shoulders. She then carefully removes her outer layer, passing the red silk garment to Keris leaving only a thinner red under-layer which in its translucence shows that Sasi has entirely covered her flesh in the red henna prayer-markings to Kimbery - and there are other silver ones too, woven in between them and slotting together.

Keris can read them. They’re... tying together the Kimbery prayers, and changing the meaning of them. They’re not reverence to the Great Mother - they’re reminders that the law of Cecelyne holds all and frees none, and that these prayers are just respect as a courtesy, not a sign of obedience like some cultist slave.

To Keris’ Nexan educated mind, it really seems like the way someone in a bar might call you ‘pal’ or ‘chum’ before they stab you. Just more posh-like. Lips twitching in amusement, she stays still at her appointed post against the wall, at the right angle to get between Sasi and the contents of her summoning circle with one quick motion.

Sasi draws in a breath. On her forehead, the full green circle burns to light, somewhat breaking her red theming. And then her soul burns brighter, wrapping around her as a silver-white pyre of fire shot through with veins of shadow. And then, again, she expands the light and it fills the room, a blinding bright bonfire which illuminates the pearl with its merciless light so everything is lit in opalescent fire.

She counts down to herself, softly. And then:

**_“Fiend! Vassal! Soul of the Unquestionable Ululuya! Indulgence of the Red Moon! The Law of Cecelyne demands that you present yourself!”_** Sasi shouts, her hair whipping behind her in the pillar of burning essence. **_“Fiend! Vassal! Indulgent one, Haroo! Come! I command you! Come!”_**

And Keris hears her invisible hands reach out and snuff out each of the candles all at the same time.

The water surges and boils, freezing steam escaping from it. The air suddenly smells of the acid tang of the Demon Sea. And an oval tears open within Sasi’s anima, within the pool, and out steps a young man.

His eyes are red. His hair is red, and flows down the back of his body reaching the back of his knees. He’s entirely naked, but that just reveals that the lower half of his body is made of pearly scales and his feet are long flipper-like extensions. The top half, on the other hand, would be pale were it not covered in red scarification, in beautiful shapes that remind Keris of both flames and waves.

Something about the way he holds himself, and his air of faint plumpness, makes Keris think of some of the rich young noblemen she saw in Matasque. The prideful, decadent ones who believed everything they saw should be theirs.

“I am Haroo,” he says in a voice which is almost a yawn. “I obey your summons, priestess of the Endless Desert.”

“I would parlay with you, rather than bind you to slavery,” Sasi says formally. “Do you desire that?”

Haroo nods. “That is desirable,” he says.

“As you wish,” Sasi says. “I offer you freedom in Creation, unhindered by me, this priest of the Golden Lord who lies sleeping at your feet before you, and knowledge as to the location of a temple to the sea gods which sits to the south of here, warding against shipwrecks. In return, I ask three services of you.”

Haroo leans in, licking his lips. Now that Keris looks closer, there’s a... translucency to his non-pearly flesh, like it’s hewn from light rather than anything solid. If so, that’s... a bit of a waste. He is very, very handsome. “A generous offer,” he says, leaning in to lick the unconscious young man with a too-long tongue. “He’s just to my tastes, too. Well, almost. I would have preferred a virgin, but sullied fare is no great loss. But three favours for such an offering is excessive, no? Especially ones unlimited as you would ask.”

They get down to business, haggling.

Keris waits, watchful and silent and still. He seems to be taking the summoning in good humour so far, but she’s seen haggling turn nasty before. Her eyes glow soft green behind half-closed lids as she takes in the scent and sound of his Essence.  He’s considerably weaker than Keris, and even weaker-er than Sasi. His essence is raw Kimbery, and clearly similar - but weaker - to that of the red moon.

((Kimbery essence, Enlightenment 6))

By the end of it, Sasi seems to have come out considerably ahead. She has all three favours she wants, seems to have twisted the wording somewhat, and Keris can hear the desire in the demon’s voice as he looks at the young priest.

“Done!” Sasi announces. “And done! The prize is yours to take!”

The demon bends down, and picks the young man up by his sodden collar. He then suddenly bends and thrusts him down into the water again, which shifts and pulses and boils and then he’s... gone. Gone from a shallow pool.

She draws a wax-stoppered roll hanging from her belt, and hands it to Varoo. “Here is the temple in question and notes on it,” she says, “all written in Old Realm. And you may leave and be free in Creation, and I will not attempt to bind you into service until you next return to Malfeas.”

“It was a pleasure to deal with you, for all that you bargain hard, priestess of Cecelyne,” the demon says, a hint of sullenness in his voice. “Release me from this circle so I may take my leave.”

“You wish for me to let you out of this circle?” Sasi asks.

“Yes,” he says, with a hint of irritation.

“As you wish,” Sasi says, the bright pillar around her pulsing. The sand flows away in the circle and the demon is freed, quickly vanishing from the seen.

Sasi, beautiful, wreathed in fire, mussed by the powers she’s thrown around turns to Keris. She’s sagging slightly in weariness. “And that went well,” she says, breathing deeply. “Five favours extracted from him.”

Keris emerges from the wall, Ascending Air in her hands. “Five?” she asks curiously, her hair rising towards the pillar of silver fire and tentatively playing across the edge as if drawn by static. “I only counted three.”

“So did he,” Sasi says, smiling quietly.

Keris cocks her head inquisitively, but doesn’t have much hope of getting Sasi to reveal anything if she’s being deliberately coy. “I contacted Lintha Gajui Narooj, by the way,” she informs her. “I’m meeting him on the evening of the fourth, some way down the coast from the Bay. I’ll tell him of Ululaya then.”

“That would be good,” Sasi tells her, in that slightly maternal way she has sometimes which reminds Keris of how much older she is. And then Sasi smiles. “Well, you know,” she says, “we’re down here and I can’t emerge for some time.” She gestures to herself, and fire follows her every moment. “You know, I find it hard to remember the last time I saw you go all-out. Why don’t you unleash your soul, too?” She advances, and gives Keris a kiss. “Maybe I want to see that beauty of yours too, now that we’ve apparently had a child together.”

((I’m not sure she’s actually ever even seen full-flare Keris. : p ))

Taking a few steps back, Keris raises an eyebrow at her. “Stand back, then,” she grins with a hint of challenge. Her dress glows, shifts and reforms itself, carmine flowers blooming all across her body with petals whose edges sublimate into close-clinging sweet-fragranced mist.

((Appearance Up mode, wheee!))

And then she explodes. Or seems to, at first. The empty green circle flares to life on her forehead, and a howling sanguine whirlwind bursts into life around her; wind whipping at the sand that Sasi’s own soul sheds. The glowing tornado stabilises for a moment, before Keris closes her eyes and concentrates, and it expands again.

By a lot.

From a whirlwind-pyre it becomes a cyclone-sea; with silver blade-fish flitting through it and preying on one another endlessly. She hears triumphant music echo out through the light of her soul as Dulmea rises above her, and senses Echo and Rathan as a shadow and halo at her back.

There’s something else this time, too. Reaching up to her forehead, she feels the heat, and realises exactly what the new addition is with a laugh. A circlet of seven green-burning fireblossoms crowns her a queen, and tiny vivid flowers grow where her bare feet touch the floor.

Keris Dulmeadokht looks up at her lover and smiles, supported and crowned by her mother and children, haloed in the light of her souls. She watches Sasi’s face with a wicked little grin, and cocks an ear to her reaction as she takes in what Keris is showing her.

Sasi’s tiny impressed gasp is worth _everything_ to Keris.

She spins in place and takes a few quick steps to the left, showing off Echo as she follows a half-step in Keris’s wake. Looking up fondly at Dulmea’s ephemeral image, she preens as her mother smiles down at her and adds a few affectionate chords to her song. Rathan, of course, is delighted at the attention his mama is getting, and the red moon glows happily, setting off a thousand subtly different shades of red in her free-flowing hair.

“This, now,” she says aloud, gesturing to her circlet of fireblossoms, “this is new. I think this is Haneyl.” She giggles. “Apparently she thinks highly of me.”

Sasi’s fire expands again. There are little gibbering things dancing in the borderlines, singing hymns to Sasi. Around her, an eagle-headed dragon curls and coils, wrapping around her flesh and shedding sand from its countless scales - but Keris can see the shadows that seep from its eyes and which ooze out from under its feathers and scales. And a crystal-wing mandala of glass tablets covered in Old Realm laws spreads out behind her.

“It’s beautiful, Keris,” Sasi says sounding awkward and unconvincing in her earnestness. She laughs, a crystal chiming bell down here in the clash of primordial energies. “Look at us, exposing our souls to one another.” She steps in and embraces Keris. “We’re both so beautiful,” she says, blinking heavily like she’s trying not to cry. “Look at this power. Look at what we’re becoming. Is... is this what we really are, and we just pretend to be mortal most of the time?”

((Oh, Sasi. Remember, she sees herself as Appearance 9 and Keris as Appearance 8, thanks to Cece.))  
((Unenlightened mortals are literally as attractive as rocks. Boring, non-magical rocks, not shiny magical rocks.))

“We have to,” Keris says sadly. “Not even because of the Realm or the Immaculates.” She hugs Sasi back, and sees a the largest lurking silver shadow in her cyclone-sea coil lovingly around Sasi’s anima-dragon. “The world can’t hold us like this. It’s too fragile, too... thin.” She stands on tiptoe to rest her forehead against Sasi’s bowed one, her own eyes growing wet in sympathy. “If we showed what we really are to the world, we’d destroy it. I’d erode it and drown it and consume it. You’d crumble it to sand and cast it into shadow and freeze it in crystal.”

She sighs. “Mortals... mortals would break under the weight of our glory. As much as we want to... we can’t be ourselves all the time. Not if we want to leave anything to be ourselves in.”

Sasi hugs her back. “I have dreams sometimes,” she whispers, doing what she does when she’d normally be crying. “Nightmares. Dreams. I’m not sure sometimes. Of the time of the Anathema. Seven hundred shining figures, who built a world where they didn’t cloak their beauty. Terrible. Beautiful. Millions of Dragonblooded slave-servants. Towers reaching as high as the clouds. Sorcerous workings to scorch the lands and reshape them like clay. So much power. So much beauty.”

Keris nods. “I remember a little. From Yamal. What I remember isn’t... it’s not a world I’d want to live in. Not even at the top, I think, because the ones at the top were...”

She remembers them; the ancient ones to whom even Yamal and Arumoh were almost children, to be humoured and pacified and ultimately disregarded.

“... were monsters,” she finishes in a hushed tone. “So far away from human that they didn’t even remember what it was like. Not in the way that we are, with... with shadow-bodies and hair and teeth. On the inside.”

Sasi is quiet for a while, in among the light. “I think I... she was one of the monsters,” she says. “Old enough that reality was just like clay to her. Something to reshape. Dreadful in her idealism. Almost... more than even an Unquestionable. A little bit like an All-Maker wearing a human skin and thinking with a human mind.” She pauses, and then lets the words all rush out. “And are we so different? We have so many souls. You... you have as many as an Unquestionable, Keris. What... what happens if your souls start spawning souls? You have your own Blood Red Moon!”

Keris stays quiet for a while. Eventually, she takes a slow breath. “You asked a while back - well, I don’t know if you ever actually asked aloud, but you were definitely wondering - why I adopted Piu and Shan and Yelm,” she says. A quick grin flits across her face. “I should really go see how they’re doing,” she adds, mostly to herself, “it’s been ages.”

“But, you wondered. And this is... sort of partly why, I think. It wasn’t at the time, but maybe if I... if I keep mortals close to me and listen to them and _care_ about them, it’ll help. Their problem, the old ones - they grew away from people. From mortals, because they were so much stronger and so much longer-lived and so... why pay them any attention at all?”

She chews a lock of hair as the rest of it coils and lashes lazily, Echo flitting around in it. “That’s where they went wrong, I think. If I can stay connected to people; the little mortals I affect, then maybe I can be... be a Greater One and still be a person.” She ducks her head to shoot a meaningful look at Sasi’s swollen abdomen. “Maybe you can too.”

Sasi lowers one hand to her midriff. “I hope so,” she says. She laughs. “She started kicking right in the middle of the summoning,” Sasi says, shaking her head. “I hope that doesn’t set up a pattern of behaviour!”

Keris rests her fingers lightly on the bump for a moment, feeling the little life shifting beneath the skin, and gives it a soft tap. “You hear that, little one?” she scolds, mock-sternly. “No causing trouble for your mama! She has important work to do! Be good, okay?”

“Keris,” Sasi says in mock scandal. “No beating my child.” She adjusts her hair, and unties the ribbons. “Do you mind helping me clean off the henna?” she asks. “I shouldn’t let the servants see me like this.”

It’s a productive evening.

A few days later, the Lintha arrive. Keris is waiting for them, at the river-mouth. She leaps up from the water like a fish and lands in the centre of the deck in her Lintha disguise, Adorjan’s empty circle glowing on her brow. Straightening from her crouch, she gives Lintha Gajui Narooj a respectful nod.

“Lintha,” she greets, somewhat more comfortable now with the customs she’s dealing with. “Fare you well?”

“The wind is good, the tides favourable and the fools are as common as the fish,” he replies, beginning a formal exchange of words. He’s clearly not as formally trained in their ways as Keris is now, and twice she manages better challenges and counter-challenges than him. Her words are the correct ones, his are the slightly sloppy ones of a sailor.

“Why did you call me, sister?” he asks respectfully at the end.

“I have news for you, brother,” she tells him, her eyes bright with honest joy. “Wonderful news of the Great Mother’s will. Come, let’s talk in private and I’ll explain.”

He takes her into his tarry cabin with the rugs and sailing charts and... sailor-y thingies. “What news, sister?”

“You recall the reef at which we last met? And that I asked if it were consecrated to the Red Moon?” He nods slowly, and she sits. “You didn’t seem to recognise the name, so I investigated further and confirmed my guess. Brother; you hold a place sacred to the Great Mother - more sacred, perhaps, than you realise.”

“I... do not follow?” he says, warily. “It is a place of the Ancient Lintha?”

Keris waves a hand in partial agreement. “How much do you know of the nature of the Great Mother? The deeper truths.” She gives him an approving half-smirk. “I know that much of your time must be spent bringing glory to the Lintha in battle, for you to hold such a high command so young. Do you know of her Unquestionable souls?”

“I am no priest - I am a captain,” he says, in a tone which is nearly dismissive in its aspect. “I would not spy upon the mysteries of the Cult of Dukthanka.”

She nods. “I thought as much. Then I will tell you what is important to us now. The Great Mother has not two souls as mortals do, but a dozen or more; each aware and as powerful as the greatest of gods - and the Mother herself is beyond them all. The Third of her souls is Ululaya, the Blood-Red Moon, who pushes and pulls at the Great Mother’s waters and acts in her name.”

She fixes excited eyes on him, lighting a fascination in his heart with sheer force of personality. “And brother, the reef is a sacred place to her. The Great Mother is vast beyond the understanding of such tiny things as us, but the Unquestionable - they are not. Imagine a soul of the Great Mother as a patron - a force to humble the Golden Lord of the Tengese; a part of the Mother herself, answering our prayers and receiving our tribute! I have sources in Malfeas, and they tell me that the Red Moon has turned her eyes to An Teng. All we need do is act in her name, and she will surely bring strength and glory to the Lintha in recompense.”

((Per + Pres, 2 dice stunt, and you might want to use other charms to enable this and protect yourself as this is sort of heresy.))  
((Yeah, I was already intending to use CME. Happily, I’m still forehead-flaring and thus have MOTES TO BURN, WAHAHAHA!  
3+5+2 stunt+3 Mendaciloquent Maverick {avoid, avoid, avoid the fact that this is heresy~}+1 bonus {it is _sort_ of true, in fact if not in doctrine}+4 Kimmy ExSux {brokering deals, talent for temptation}=14. 8+4=12 sux; 8m spent.  
Carmine Mantled Emissary used to stop him thinking about anything that would negatively affect his judgement of my character. Uh... Pres+Pol: 3+1+2 stunt+2 Kimmy ExSux+4 Enlightenment autosux=6. Whoa, 6+2+4= _12_ sux, hahaha. Another 14m, 1wp, wooph. Lucky I can forehead-flare here.))

Keris spends several hours working away at him, digging away at his objections. Not that he really has many. After all, everything she says makes perfect sense - and Rathan, bless him, stops him thinking ill of her and covers up any missteps she makes. She works away at him with her cunning words, and as he says, he’s just a captain. Not a theologian.

By the end of it, he’s wanting her to speak to his crew as well.

It’s not too much trouble to spread the word to them as well - in rather simpler language, admittedly - and she hands over her scroll on Ululaya’s worship with the advice to do as many rituals honouring her as possible on the demesne itself, to consecrate it further to her glory.

((Per + Expression to speechify the crowd.))  
((Oh yeah. 3+5+2 stunt+4 Kimmy ExSux {brokering deals, talent for temptation}=10. Hah! 8+4=12 sux. Again. Obviously, the Great Mother smiles on me in my work this day.))

The mix of mixed blood Lintha and other recruits... yeah, they’re like chaff to Keris’ words and preaching. They’re like putty in her hands. She blesses them in the name of the Great Mother and the Red Moon, praises the commodore for his devotion to the Lintha, and slips back into the water when their meeting concludes, to swim back to Sasi once more.

And if, having met Haneyl and gained a better understanding of her nature since her last meeting with the Lintha, she happens to slip a little grey seed of loyalty into Lintha Gajui Narooj’s heart... well, nobody need know that but her, right? He certainly notices nothing.


	19. Chapter 19

Sitting on the water’s edge, dangling her feet into the river, Keris sits and basks in the sun. She can hear Rathan babbling excitedly as he, too, bathes - although there’s rather more complaints from Dulmea there as she tries to clean him. Apparently he got into the swamp and got covered in mud.

What to do now, she thinks to herself.

Idly, she pulls up a handful of rivergrass and gives it an assessing look as she feels for her latest trick. It should have occurred to her earlier, really. Echo often hides in her hair, and she can spread Dulmea’s poisons through it. Rathan’s means of extending his influence into the world are subtler, but...

... she watches as her locks shift into swift and fine grey roots that plunge into the handful of sopping plant matter, wringing the water from it and weaving it into a braided and sturdy circlet. She barely needs to think about it - it almost reshapes itself, once she has the roots inside it.

Interesting. And something to experiment with, perhaps. Keris nods to herself. Yes, she can go visit the misbegotten again, and see if this trick works as well on flesh as it does on plants. Donning the circlet at a jaunty angle, she sets off towards Dragon’s Jaw.

It’s sweltering in An Teng. The Season of Fire is here, and the heat is oppressive - and the humidity is even worse. It’s hotter than even the hottest summers in Nexus - although at least the Nexan Stink isn’t present. The odour of sewage around the harbour couldn’t compare to Nexus. Keris wrinkles her nose anyway as she surfaces - with some reluctance - into the heat. It’s a good thing that her Metagaoiyn sense of taste makes everything tasty in an exciting, hungry sort of way. It takes some of the foulness out of the smell, as long as she doesn’t think too hard about exactly what she’s finding tasty. And her Amulet - her blessed, wonderful, gorgeous Amulet - keeps the worst of the stickiness and heat out.

It’s still not particularly comfortable, though. Urgh. How do the Tengese _live_ with this every year? Muttering to herself unkindly, Keris reconfigures her clothes to bland sailor’s garb and goes in search of Darling Yellow’s family. One positive about the heat - any cuts or injuries they’ve got will probably need treatment, which will work both as practice and as a nice little demonstration of her divine generosity.

The misbegotten have their shanty town on the sandy, salt-swept dunes north of An Teng. Keris notices now that the dunes have even been shaped to hide the town from the main city. They’re an embarrassment. As soon as she arrives, she notices that people are looking at her. She’s different, even disguised as a sailor. She doesn’t fit in.  Uninterested in being gawked at, she artfully aims her course to take her out of sight between the buildings for a moment, and vanishes onto the rooftops; her sailor’s garb traded for silvery veils the colour of the sky that blend with it to anyone looking upward. And as an added bonus, her new altitude gives her a much better vantage point for moving around the town!

The buildings are light things of driftwood, cheap trash-grade wood and tarred sailcloth. It’s hard to find places to stand that can support her weight. Keris is grateful for the preternatural agility and weightless grace that she’s had ever since Exalting as she flickers across rope-strung canvases and salt-rotted wooden ceilings, listening for any voices she recognises. It’s the old, withered voice of Darling Yellow that catches her ear, praying to Mercury in a repeating, croaked mantra. It’s coming from a slightly larger structure, a crude temple which is basically a large tent propped up with some mud-brick pillars.

Keris comes to a halt on one of the pillars which she’s fairly sure can actually hold her, ready to leap off at a moment’s notice if she feels it start to shift under her weight. Once she’s satisfied it’ll be staying upright, she cocks an ear and listens to what the old woman is praying for. It’s a prayer for luck for those of her clan who are at sea, that they return safely and with good fortune and that the perilous storms not sweep them up. Slipping into the tent behind her, Keris summons her dress of carmine flowers with a thought, though she keeps it subtle this time, without the inhuman beauty that she could veil herself with. Padding forward on soundless feet, she kneels beside Darling Yellow with liquid grace.

“Grandmother,” she greets quietly.

The old woman twitches violently, and nearly falls. “Lady,” she croaks, breath wheezing, “you gave me such a start.” She’s alone in here, apart from one infant who lies in a doze close to a cluster of shrines. Keris can recognise the shrines as being for gods of health and well-being.

She nods in apology. “I’m sorry if I frightened you, Grandmother. Have you thought about my offer?” She rises, moving over to crouch down next to the infant and investigate.

Keris can hear the baby’s breath crackle. He’s breathing shallowly, trying to get air. She remembers this all too well from her spying and break-in of other’s places - leaving a sick child by the family shrine, in the hope they’ll recover and if they don’t that their soul will be swiftly taken to a better life by the gods. She strokes his hair gently, frowning. “Poor thing. He’s ill.” She glances back at Darling Yellow. “Did your daughter tell you what I said? About the mortal child who lives in my home? My healing; the gift of freedom from sickness - it changes people, but it works - and it lasts.”

“It is the humid air, lady,” Darling Yellow says quietly. “The humid air and the heat, which makes the stench attract baleful spirits and biting flies. The Seasons of Wood and Fire are the worst. He will recover, or he will not. He would not be the first of my great-grandchildren to die from malaria.”

“No more need die,” Keris notes. “Now or at all.” She looks down at the little boy again. “I won’t grant a blessing unless it is asked for - my blessings can’t be taken back, once given. But I can help him in lesser ways, and I’ll ask nothing for it in return.”

Concentrating hard on what she can hear, she picks the tiny gasping body up and focuses, brushing a tendril of hair across a sweat-soaked little forehead. She keeps him in Darling Yellow’s sight so that the old woman doesn’t panic, but lets her arms and the fall of one sleeve hide the way her fingers branch into his body, merging seamlessly through his skin.

What she finds there isn’t terribly good. There are _things_ in his blood; tiny little least gods singing songs of fever and fatigue. She spreads her roots through his veins, sucking up and killing as many of them as she can find, soothing the fever wracking his body, coaxing tired muscles and organs to a second wind.

It’s delicate work, and Keris finally looks up from a much healthier-looking baby to find that some time has passed since she began.

((Medicine rooooll. Hmm. Cog+Occult? 2+3+2 stunt+1 Kimmy ExD+2 ExSux {patronage and kindness are real, endlessly giving}=8. 6+2=8 sux. Flesh-Weaving Tendrils used, obviously.))  
((Okay, that’s a success - it’s now something he’s rolling against treated morbidity for. The treatment process takes her quite a bit of time, though - it’s an hour-long thing which requires lots of little root-mouths to eat out parasites and careful ‘playing’ of his biology to bring down the fever and heal the damage to his liver.))  
((Ah, ‘kay. In that case, Darling Yellow probably does notice that something weird is going on, but a) Keris is a weird goddess of some sort and b) his colour probably starts improving and the gasping slows into regular breaths.))  
((... yeah, she managed to roll 4 successes on 2 dice for her Reaction + Awareness, despite having early stage cataracts))  
((... wow.))

Darling Yellow looks... scared when Keris looks back to her. Very scared. Scared for the child and scared of Keris, too.

Keris suspects that this old woman with slightly milky eyes saw rather more than she was meant to. Very carefully and without making any sudden moves, Keris hands the baby over so that she can check for herself that he’s alright. He’s not cured - she didn’t get all of the parasites in his blood, and there’s still a faint crackle to his breathing - but he’s no longer gasping for every breath or sweating and shaking in the deadly grip of fever.

“Lady,” Darling Yellow says, cradling her great-grandson and running her hands over him, as if to see and feel if he is all right, “I...” she swallows. “Lady. The temperature is gone, but... are you a spirit of the mangroves? Your hands. They were roots.”

Keris nods. It’s an accurate enough guess. “The wind, the sea and the mangroves of the shore,” she agrees, and motions outside, at the salt-sand dunes the shanty town is built on. “You’re edge people; living where the land meets the sea. It’s another reason I chose to talk to you.”

She holds up a hair-tendril, letting the follicles split into questing roots for a moment before shifting back. “Tree roots drain poison from the soil. It’s not so hard to pull sickness from flesh in turn. And as I said; I’ll ask for nothing in return for this. I’m generous, and I can wait for an answer.”

“Lady,” Darling Yellow says. She takes a breath. “Will he recover?”

Keris spreads her hands and hair. “He has a better chance now,” she says. “As good as if he’d been seen by a doctor, I’d say - one of the best in the region. But he’s young still, and it’s a bitter sickness.” She catches Darling Yellow’s eye, pushes down the butterflies in her stomach and looks as serious as she can. “A blessing would all but guarantee his wellbeing. But like I said; I don’t - won’t - force my patronage on anyone. It’s always their choice. Your choice.”

She’s not just talking about the little boy anymore.

“Spirit of the mangroves, wind and ocean,” Darling Yellow says to herself. “You are powerful, lady. Powerful and kind and generous and beautiful.” She swallows. “Teach me to pray. I will set up a shrine in a fine place in our humble temple.”

((... oh what the fuck, 8 successes on her Per + Pres roll to impress Keris with her devotion and faith and leave her well-inclined to her new worshippers.))  
((dammit badass old lady))  
((stop rolling so many 10s))  
((Hahaha.))

Keris breaks into a glorious smile, and draws the old woman into an embrace, kissing her on both cheeks. “I am glad,” she says, in perfect honesty. “I could not ask for a better priestess.” Taking the babe from Darling Yellow’s arms, she kisses him on the forehead and returns him to his crib. Then, referencing the writings she prepared when she came up with the name the misbegotten know her by, she begins to explain the means by which she can be honoured.

It takes some time and a rainstorm has started before Keris finishes. Other misbegotten are waiting quietly in the back. Some of them are listening. Some, Keris can tell, are related to Darling Yellow, but others seem to look at her as their priestess - even old and crippled as she is.

Her blood is singing. Keris can barely contain her joy. Finally - _finally!_ \- they’re following her! Trusting her, loving her! Okay, perhaps not entirely yet, but this; this is a massive step in the right direction. This is huge.

And it’s all because Darling Yellow was brave enough to trust her! Oh, Keris is _definitely_ rewarding her for this. She’ll have to think of exactly how - certainly, she can sooth the aches and pains of age, perhaps grant her a few more years - oh, and maybe see if she can heal the old woman’s feet and give her back the ability to walk!

She kisses Darling Yellow again on both cheeks before she rises. “You honour me with your worship, grandmother,” she tells her warmly. “And I will look after your people; trust me. We’re kin now, and I will not fail my own when they have need of me.”

She raises her voice, pitching it to carry to the misbegotten watching. She blossoms into beauty; the flowers of her dress glowing from within and her hair billowing out in an unfelt wind. “My family,” she calls. “My children. I will not forget my kinfolk, and I will not betray your trust in me. For as long as you follow me, I have a duty to you, and I _will_ see it done.”

With a last warm look to Darling Yellow, Keris slips away, leaving a glowing audience behind her. She vanishes into the monsoon storm. Visibility is measured in the tens of metres at best, so she’s quickly gone from sight among the raindrops as fat as her little fingers. Bouncing in happiness, she heads home. She has a cult! She has worshippers! The thought reminds her of the Red Mountain family, and she purses her lips. Hmm. It’s... probably about time she checked up on them, isn’t it? Yes, and maybe start a few more cults in the valley around the Catalyst of the Red Sunrise. Best to check with Sasi before going, though - it could be a trip of a week or more. She dances through the raindrops and over the waves as she heads home, still giddy with delight at her success.

Sasi is... a little short with her when she gets back. Things aren’t going as she might have hoped with some things with some Tengese family, and she’s let that slip because she’s been focussing too heavily on the things for the Blood-Red Moon and... yes. Sasi tells Keris it’s not her, it’s Sasi, but... Keris can’t help but worry it _is_ her.

Brought down from her giddy high, she babbles her way through an explanation about going back up to the Middle Lands to check on the Red Mountain family and start seeding some cults in the valley around the Catalyst and escapes eastward before Sasi can snap at her about anything more, though not without reminding Sasi to call if she needs her for anything.

The rain is still hammering down. It’s a relief from the heat, even if it’s so humid it’s hard to tell the land from the water. Keris is grateful for the chance to dip in and out of the water, leaping like a dolphin and giggling a lot. Of course, all that rain... does make it a bit difficult to navigate. Again. She does her best nonetheless, tracing the rivers by eye, and... and she’s _sure_ she remembers passing up this particular waterway, it seems very familiar. Sort of. Ish.

It’s purest luck, and maybe the generous currents of the river, which lead her to where she meant to go. Well, not exactly meant. It’s more that at least now she knows where she is, she thinks as she sees the looming shape of the Dynastic estate. There’s light visible on the Western horizon, and the rain is lessening.

She dashes up the cliff again, seeking refuge inside with only the briefest of pauses to check that the place isn’t occupied - anyone who came holidaying to An Teng in this weather would be mad indeed, after all. There is no one here but the staff, and the master bedrooms are sealed off, shutters latched and bolted. Keris wanders the hallways, eyes blissfully closed in the delightful cool of the marble building. It’s a beautifully built summer-house. She wants one just like it.

... actually...

... she might be able to have this one. There is a way. Yes, she... she can see that; her training in Sorcery and her instinctive sense of her Domain within. She can see how she can sort of... shift things from one place to the other - like how she passes objects in to Dulmea, but on a much bigger scale. It won’t be exactly _easy_ , but...

Yes, she decides. Why not? She deserves a pretty house, and if she can take it out again and put it down somewhere in the valley, it’ll give Sasi a place to stay cool and comfortable while they try and break into whatever’s at the bottom of that flooded mineshaft.

She’ll need to get rid of the people, though. And, hmm. She normally pulls objects in through herself, so if she’s pulling a whole building in, then everything around it will need to feel like her; saturated in her Essence. If she creates another Kimberian lake with the building on the shore, that should do it - her Domain is built on one, so that’ll be like the house is already halfway in.

((Rolling Compassion 3. Uh. BOTCH. Welp, sorry staff.))

Re-energised all of a sudden, Keris flares her caste mark and gets to work. The _first_ order of business is to get rid of the staff. Sleeping and defenceless, they stand no chance against the silent wind that sweeps the building, and soon there aren’t even any bodies left.

The next step is to get the area right. Keris makes sure to get a decent distance away before opening her veins on the ground and praying to the Great Mother, murmuring hymns to her generosity and the universal reach of Kimbery’s seas as she bleeds onto the ground. The wound hisses as it closes up almost as soon as she’s done, but she can already see the ground beginning to dampen and turn boggy. She retreats back to the house, judging its position with a critical eye. One of the corners is... a wee bit close to the developing bog for comfort, but she’ll be moving it into her Domain soon anyway. The walls sagging shouldn’t be an issue as long as she gets it in soonish.

Then she starts working out her ritual. The first order of business is to tell Dulmea what she’s doing and have her coadjutor clear a space for the building on the Seaward side of the city. She plucks water plants from her Domain and plants them in a circle around the central building. The outhouses and extensions she ignores for now - instinct tells her that she can only move so much. She waters the plant-marks with more blood, and daubs every wall, floor and ceiling with a crimson handprint claiming the place sa hers.

A few hours after sunrise, Keris is ready. She starts to chant. She improvises a bit with the words; claiming the place repeatedly, exhorting her Domain to open and accept it, calling on Dulmea to grant it safe passage into her soul and praising her own cleverness in stealing it.

It’s exhausting. And, um. Sort of noticeable, too. The rain picks up again as she finishes her first hour of pacing the perimeter and chanting, and it takes her an embarrassingly long moment to realise that it’s not raining water, but blood. The cliff trembles as she keeps up her ritual, and more flowers bloom around the edge of the building - bright, vivid and seven-petalled blossoms that she recognises.

Around the second hour mark, some of the rain starts falling upwards. She can see a red moon reflected in the Kimberian pond that’s formed next to the building. She ignores it and keeps going. By the third hour, a mist has descended around the house, and the wind-ribbons of her Domain wind lazily in and out of the thick fog.

All told, it takes her most of the morning to steal the house, and it’s coming up on midday by the time the mists dissipate entirely and she finds herself in her Domain, standing at the edge of _her_ new summerhouse. She looks at it proudly for a moment, frowns, concentrates, and wakes up sprawled out flat on the bank of her new pond.

... yeah, she should probably deal with that now to prevent another Matasque incident. Her caste mark is already flaring, so Keris allow her scarlet whirlwind aura to whip into existence around her as she gestures explosively at the slowly growing lake.

**_“Break!”_** she commands in Old Realm, shattering the magic of the unnatural waters.

((Countermagic on the pond to stop it growing. Ah. Which is spell-shattering, which, uh, has interesting side effects.))

Keris’ anima surges, bright light illuminating the morning. The lake starts to glow, too, in the same anima colour. Glow and bubble and broil, like a cauldron on the fire. Scalding steam erupts from it, and it’s only when the steam leaves ice wherever it touches that she realises just how _cold_ it is. The ice spreads and spreads and spreads and...

And then the bubbling stops, and Keris is standing in the middle of a frozen swamp, on top of iron-hard ice, in the sweltering heat of An Teng.

She sits down with a thump, breathing hard. “That is,” she says aloud, “a lot harder than Sasi usually makes it look.” A few moments of panting later, she cocks her head cautiously. “Dulmea? Is it in there in good condition?”

Dulmea clears her throat. “Ahem,” she says. “Mostly. It has somewhat... ah, slumped on one side, child, and due to the proximity to the Swamp the... ah, vegetation has already started to grow over it. But it appears to be mostly intact from the outside.”

Keris sighs gratefully. “Kay. Good. Tell... tell Haneyl that she can make the outside pretty with flowers as long as the inside stays clean and in good condition. She’ll probably be able to keep the plants from getting in if she’s allowed to do pretty things with them around it.”

“I am not sure how much she understands yet, child,” she says. “She is very young, still.”

Keris shrugs and pushes herself to her feet. “Well, tell her anyway. I still have some swimming to do. I’ll check with the demjen at the Catalyst and then...” a wide yawn, “... then maybe take a nap.”

Dulmea sighs. “I will try to track her down. She is hard to find when she does not want to be found.”

Chuckling, Keris makes her way back down to the river. She’s pretty sure she knows the way to the Catalyst from here. “Takes after her mother in that,” she murmurs. “Both of them.”

Within a few hours Keris has managed to find where she left the demjen and the silt scavengers. Deep down in the cool waters of the sinkhole, they’ve made progress. The bottom still isn’t exposed - according to the demjen, the scavengers are having problems with the sediment and their attempts to remove it. It’s built up dirt for hundreds of years, and it’s polluted with things they find deeply unpleasant to eat as they get deeper.

((... and the demjen rolled no successes))

The demjen, on the other hand, have had no luck at all.

Keris sighs deeply, but she’s too tired to really take them to task for their failure. She lodges herself in a crack deep, deep down in the sinkhole wall and sinks into blissful, exhausted sleep.


	20. Chapter 20

Keris spends a productive few hours overnight playing with Rathan and Haneyl. Since they’re both trying to learn to talk, she gets to cuddle both of them as she walks them through some easy words. Haneyl smells lovely, Keris decides after spending a few hours with her flower-filled hair close to her nostrils. Certainly, compared to her Rathan doesn’t really have a particular scent beyond the smell of the ocean.

Even Echo shows up for a bit of listening to Keris’ stories, although she gets bored in about fifteen minutes and runs off to do... something.

And Dulmea’s thankful smile for the time off is more than worth it off.

All in all, Keris wakes feeling mentally relaxed after family-time. In fact, down this deep away from the light she overslept, and the day is already scorching up above.

“Ungh,” she moans, squinting against the glare of the sun and retreating back underwater after poking her head out. “No, bad sun. Stop it.”

Grumbling, she calls up the demjen, briefly and grumpily berates them for failing to find anything of use, and sets them searching the places they haven’t already covered. They have located most of the valley’s small villages and hamlets in the course of their searching, which earns them a reprieve from the scolding.

But before she can get started on that, Keris wants to check on the Red Mountain family. Quietly. Judging it to be late morning at the moment, she should be able to get to White Bridge Rising Over Water a little after noon.

It doesn’t take her that long. It’s easy to get back to the main river from this place, because she just follows the course downstream until it merges.

White Bridge Rising Over Water is much as Keris left it. It’s a Saturnday today, the end of the working week, so there’s a market on in the square before the castle. Keris womanfully resists the urge to go pilfer things by reminding herself that there are far higher-quality things she could spend her time stealing, and instead makes her way to the Red Mountain family estate. She can heal with her, um, root-hand-things now - and probably pass herself off as being a servant of the Sower if she does so openly. Which even has the benefit of being true! Ish. So if there are any wounds or illnesses in the family, she can almost certainly pull them a little bit deeper into worship of the Shashalme - perhaps with some blood sacrifice; animal for now.

With the aid of Keris’ actions previously, the money problems which were putting stress on their relationship seem to have lessened. Keris could always go make more trouble there, and provide more ‘help’.

The other thing she notes is the old man upstairs - Danuwong’s father. He wheezes when he breaths, sitting up in his smoke-filled rooms with his Gateway board. Faithful Lotus, the nine-year old heiress as Joyous Raven’s eldest daughter, holds her nose when she comes to play her grandfather. There seems to be a quiet understanding in the family that the old boy doesn’t have much longer, that the breath comes harder and harder.

With a sly smile, Keris settles down near the family shrine, making several strategic changes to her garb before melting into a section of nearby wall. She waits there as nothing more than an odd play of light over the wood and a few curving lines in the varnished grain. It’s worth checking that they’re still honouring the Sower before making her next move.  She notes with satisfaction that there’s a new niche in the shrine, where one of the statues she made of the Sower of Seeds sits. There’s an offering of flowers there, which looks to be a few days old.

Yes, this will work nicely. She settles in to wait, mentally flicking through the library of her new holiday home to pass the time. There’s quite a broad range of books. Some are fiction - some rather, uh, lurid fiction, which Keris makes a mental note to keep far, far away from Echo and her other souls. Others are on An Teng, are seem to largely focus on Dragonblooded leisure activities in the satrapy. And some are non-fiction texts that all fit under what she recognises from exposure to Sasi as elements of Dynastic education - history books and treatises on various local elemental breeds.

And a few basic texts on Sorcery. They’re far from expert-level, and don’t even have any spells in them, but they discuss theory in a way which makes a lot more _sense_ then Sasi does whenever she starts yammering about Essence flow calculations and glyph terminology and rote memorisation of sorcerous diagrams. Keris eats it up happily, making the occasional subvocal “huh” and eagerly reciting particularly interesting bits to Dulmea.

“I must say,” Dulmea observes, cuddling Haneyl close, “I have no great understanding of what you say. At least I see how lady Sasimana’s explanations might make sense. But I do not follow how... what is it that you’re trying to say?”

“The world is... alive, sort of,” Keris explains, referring to the book as she speaks. “Or, not really, but you can treat it like it is in some ways? And if it’s alive, Essence is how it... how it thinks, how it lives; the blood that keeps it going. So Sorcery isn’t all... all books and rules and stuff, it’s more like taming an animal; getting it to do what you want it to.” She makes a face. “No, not taming, that’s the wrong word. Training. It’s never _tame_ , you always have to be careful of it biting you. But if you learn from _it_ , if you pay attention, you can work out how it thinks. And then you can use your own Essence to sort of... convince it to do things you couldn’t do on your own. Everything is connected to everything else. You can look at any part of it to learn about the whole.”

She snaps the book shut and jolts out of her inner world as she senses movement through her real body’s senses. Opening her eyes, she sees Joyous Raven already kneeling at the family shrine - and the light levels are a lot lower, too, how long has she been reading? She must have been distracted. Whoops. Well, no matter. Hopefully Joyous Raven hasn’t reached the Sower in her praises yet.

Her rituals are much more formalised and much more proper than Darling Yellow’s, but they seem similar.  Keris cocks her head, comparing styles and phrasing and again noticing the similarity in their bearing; the way that Darling Yellow has something in her posture and tone that echoes the accent of this wealthy noblewoman.

It’s not enough to go off of, but it’s maybe something to support some of her suspicions.

Meanwhile, Joyous Raven is busy thinking the house gods and the river gods and the bridge god and the other things that, as the lady of a domain which lives by the river, it lives or dies by. Looking at the placement of the shrine niche, the other gods less core to the domain come later.

Keris waits patiently until she thanks and names the Sower for their generous patronage in aiding them with a gift of gold in these troubled times before making her move.

“Joyous Raven.”

The lady stops short and looks around, eyebrows drawing together at the familiar form of address.

There’s nobody nearby. Certainly nobody young, and the voice had sounded young. She turns back to the shrine, unsettled.

“Joyous Raven.”

She turns quicker this time, and gasps, flinching backwards. Where only seconds ago there had been nobody, now...

... now there is a spirit. It’s of indeterminate gender, with cherry-red lips and hair that seems to be a curtain of lotus petals falling to its waist. It wears a tunic of woven leaves that gleam like living emerald, with ruby-red flowers embroidered on them, and its face is beautiful. Years of training in deportment kick in as she stares, and once the initial shock has worn off, she picks out the marks and iconography woven into its garb.

Signs of the Sower.

“Joyous Raven,” the spirit - no, the servant of the Sower - says a third time, smiling at her. “You honour my lordlady.” It uses both gender suffixes for the Sower, one after the other, just as the wandering priest had. “They are pleased with your gratitude. In their generosity, they have sent me to gift you anew.”

Joyous Raven crosses her hands on her lap, and presses her forehead to the ground, prostrating herself before the spirit. “I am honoured, wise one,” she says, a trace of fear in her voice. “Blessed be the gods and blessed be the Sower, from whom such wondrous things grow.”

“I bring a gift of new growth and new life for one who is ailing,” the spirit informs her. “Your husband’s father, whose breath is short and whose days are numbered. The Sower would see his wisdom remain to aid your new prosperity, and to spare you the grief of his passing.” It smiles again, wider. “I will show you how to thank the Sower for such a gift.”

Her breath catches in her throat. “That is a thing you would do?” she says, and then flinches. “I did not expect such generosity,” she adds hastily. “I am not ungrateful.”

The spirit’s eyes flash, but it seems appeased by the quick apology. “The Sower is generous with many things,” it says. “Life and wealth are not so very different, and it is my lordlady’s will to bestow them upon worthy mortals. Show me to him.”

Joyous Raven looks at the shrines for a brief moment, and takes a breath. “I would not abandon my attendance to the Sower or other minor gods,” she pleads. “Might you wait, wise one, for a few moments so that my prayer not go incomplete?”

Lips quirking in mild amusement, it nods, and waits for her to finish. Joyous Raven finishes her prayers, her voice only shaking a bit, and she carefully fills a little clay shot glass before each shrine with a glass of rice spirits, setting fire to it. Each of them burns with a blue flame as she lights each one in turn with her taper.

“Thank you, for giving me time to do this, wise one,” she says, looking down as to not stare directly at the spirit.

“I am generous,” the spirit replies. “Now. Show me to your husband’s father, and I shall pass on the Sower’s gift.”

She leads the spirit up through the narrow stone fortified corridors of the castle, up into the higher rooms. The scent of tobacco and cannabis smoke hangs heavy in the air. Eventually they come to a cool stone room, where an old bald man with stained yellow fingers and teeth sits hunched over a Gateway board, playing with one of the servants.

With a clicking of pieces, he moves one of his orange pieces and takes one of the younger man’s green pieces.

((What’s the old man’s name?))  
((Red Mountain Lanatu - he moved in with Danuwong after his wife died, because he had no daughters and daughters are the ones who would look after the parents in their old age.))

The spirit enters the room, which more or less halts all activity in it. “Red Mountain Lanatu,” it announces, and makes a rapid and entirely unnoticed decision roughly summarised as “why not?”. “I am Seventh Bloom of the Twelve-Petalled Flower. My lordlady, the Sower of Seeds, sends you a gift. Will you let me heal your lungs and give you back your breath?”

((o keris. “fuck it, I have one cult, might as well see if I can get a bit of worship from this one too.”))  
((“even if I can’t, most powerful gods have servants with unique names, right?”))

The young servant-boy flinches away from the Gateway tables, sending the pieces flying as he knocks the board over. The old man for his part goes into a hacking, coughing fit out of raw surprise from the inhuman, superhuman presence of the spirit.  It takes several swift steps forwards and kneels down to reach his level. “Peace, mortal,” it says. “I will plant new life in you. Hold still.”

Laying a hand flat against his chest, its eyes flutter closed and its fingers branch into grey roots that painlessly branch and grow into his flesh. Keris concentrates as her roots burrow into the old man; seeking, questing and searching. She focuses mostly on his lungs, sending tiny grey tendrils into the myriad little channels there, searching for the source of his wheezing breath.

It would be hard to see with the eye - but here and now, when she’s squirming inside his body like this, it’s easy to tell what’s wrong with him. There’s... _flesh_ growing within his body, flesh which shouldn’t be there that’s solid where flesh shouldn’t be solid. It’s pressing against his lungs, closing his airway.

Humming to herself as she concentrates, Keris runs her hands through his body. There are other nodes of tainted flesh in there, too - flesh that tastes like the largest lung bit. Growths tasting like lung in other bits of his body? What is this? Keris vaguely remembers Old Calley’s mention of ‘wyld-growths’. She said they were caused by the smoke coming from Firewander, and they made flesh grow out of control - a lesser form of mutation which made the body turn against itself and grow out of control where it should not be.

She resists the urge to wrinkle her nose. Well, that’s... icky but at least easy to deal with. Careful not to damage the flesh around them, Keris spreads her roots into the fleshy growths and - not without some enjoyment - begins to eat them from the inside out. The different taste and texture is helpful, letting her fairly easily identify what to consume and what to leave.

((Okay! So! That’s actually an example given for a medical thing. By RAW, treating tumours is at least diff 5, takes at least 3 hours, and inflicts (diff) dice of unsoakable lethal.

Now, Flesh Weaving Tendrils means there’s no damage from the medical effort, but doesn’t alleviate the rest. So it’s going to take her at least 3 hours and she knows from her diagnosis roll that it’ll be Diff 8 to in one go, because the cancer has spread through his body and some of them are quite small. If she does it in smaller bits, it’ll be lower difficulty, but will require multiple operations))  
((if she had Flesh Weaving Tendrils x2, she would have a speed booster, but she doesn’t have that option))  
((Damn. Right then. Hmm. What’s the roll? Still Cog?))  
((Yes. Cog + Occult - it’s mostly a question of patience and careful coaxing of flesh back into form and not accidentally cutting blood vessels))  
((Urgh, remind me to learn a medical Style from a stomach bottle bug. Okay, so that gives me a 7 dice base pool, which is maybe 3-4 successes, and I can boost that to, hmm, 12 with Excellency usage. Which is... still not terribly good odds for Diff 8. Hmm. Smaller bits, then - heh, which fits better, since this is merely one gift to clear his lungs, and the Sower’s generosity is not infinite.))  
((If you’re just after the big lung tumour, it’s only Diff 5))

There is, Keris quickly realises, too much wrong here to easily fix in one go. She stews on that for a while, but has no real choice to accept it. Well, maybe it’ll help her lure them further into the cult.

“This may take some time,” she says without opening her eyes. “There are growths within you where your flesh has turned against itself. In the Sower’s name, I will remove the ones that are choking you.”

That done, she draws back her root-tendrils, ignoring the growths elsewhere in his body to focus exclusively on those within his lungs; the ones threatening his life. Her world narrows down to the trickle of blood and viscera and the taste of the boundary between healthy flesh and harmful growth as she slowly, achingly nibbles at the tumour and teases flesh back around it and convinces blood vessels to close in her wake.

It’s far harder than healing Darling Yellow’s great-grandson was; this isn’t anything as like as simple as just sucking obviously _wrong_ things out of his blood. This is delicate surgery, and if not for the dead men in her lungs, Keris’s breathing would be noticeably strained with the effort.

((2+3+2 stunt+1 Metagaos ExD+2 ExSux {acts to acquire sustenance, seduce appropriate offerings from others}=8. *crosses fingers* HAH! 6+2= _8 sux fuck yes goddammit why didn’t I go for the lot?_ ))

It takes many long hours. Keris seals off the door and asks Joyous Raven to make sure they are not disturbed. With coaxing words she keeps the old man calm even as she eats of his flesh and drinks his blood - and does it all to help him. A thunderstorm starts outside. Some might consider it an ill omen, but Keris just grits her teeth against the noise and keeps working.

Eventually, she disengages. Her fingers don’t actually change back from roots, even when she wills them to - they’re _tired_ , exhausted enough that they don’t even have the strength left to reshape themselves. She listens to Lanatu’s breathing as he takes what are probably his first unhindered breaths in years, and nods in satisfaction.

“Is... is that it?” he asks wearily and uneasily, reaching up with nicotine-stained fingers to hesitantly poke at a chest that a spirit had just had its fingers in, as if he too could reach inside.

“Can you breathe?” the spirit asks rhetorically. “There are still growths in your flesh elsewhere, but your lungs are clean and clear. Your body is no longer choking you.”

“I...” He gasps for air, and finds it clear. “Yes. It... what demon was doing that?”

“Not a demon,” the spirit corrects. “Things of the Wyld, which warp the flesh and make it grow out of control. They breed in the growths they make and slowly spread throughout the body.”

“W-will my soul be tainted, wise one?” he asks the hell-empowered Infernal Exalt, voice trembling.

“They are things of the flesh, not of the spirit,” the benevolent deity’s servant-spirit reassures him. “Your soul is unsullied. But my lordlady sent me with only the strength to grant a small boon of life. Others still nest within you, and in time they may threaten your life again.” It cocks its head. “I will ask the Sower if I may return and finish what I have begun, but their generosity is not infinite.”

It glances up at Joyous Raven. “They were pleased with your piety and the gratitude you showed for their last gift, though,” it adds. “There are ways you could please them further.”

The woman bows deeply. “I am the land and through me it speaks to the gods,” she says humbly. “Let us go to the shrine and there you may show me the proper forms.”

There are indeed more proper forms that Keris has ready. A lot of them share a common theme.

“Life, the Sower has given you,” explains Keris. “And so you can return the gift of life to honour them.” She explains the rituals of sacrificing animals - an ox or a pig; animals of value - by bleeding them dry in a circle consecrated to the Sower and burying the body for the trees to take sustenance from; planting gifts in the ground just as the Sower plants gifts in the worthy.

Keris gets the feeling that the woman isn’t comfortable with this, although she isn’t quite sure why. “Is there something wrong?” she asks, reaching up with a root-fingered hand... ah, no, her hands have recovered enough to shift back into human ones, though her fingers still ache. She waves her fingers once past the woman’s firmly downward-focused gaze, drawing her attention.

“It is a small thing, wise one - but I fear putting the land out of order and upsetting the balance of the spirits. Mighty gods have reserved the right for such sacrifices to themselves, and the Immaculate Order may tolerate smaller shrines, but too obvious worship would draw their attention,” she says clearly. “I fear to upset the way of things. I of course will honour the sower properly, but...”

((Pre + Pres, 3 successes to try to persuade Keris that she cannot simply elevate the sower in that way, and that she will of course make the proper offerings, but what she asks for is a lot))

“You need not make sacrifices like this regularly,” Keris reassures her. “Or at all, if you don’t wish to. I’ll ask about another boon of health regardless. But the Sower’s benevolence is not without limit. Your piety in keeping the land in balance does you honour. All I suggest is that a sacrifice in troubled times might reassure my lordlady that you are making righteous use of their gifts.”

She’s wavering, but Keris will need more time to work on her to overcome her reluctance - and, the remnants of the street rat thinks cynically, some time to train her in hiding what she’s doing better and being a secret cult member, rather than an upstanding lady of the land.

“There is a priest who told you of the Sower, yes?” she says, deciding to take the middle path. “I shall tell him to return here and add his own prayers to your own before I return to my lordlady.” After all, she can’t really hang around here as a spirit. And she has a few other things to do in this region. “Think on what I have said.”

“I will think,” she says, swallowing. “Thank you mightily, wise one.”

The spirit returns her bow, if somewhat shallower, and then just seems to... melt away before her eyes, vanishing into the walls and furniture as though they were never there to begin with.

Once she’s made her way out of the town, Keris heads back to the Catalyst. Evening is drawing in, and if she and Sasi are ever going to do something about whatever’s at the bottom of that pit, they need reassurance that the locals won’t cause them trouble. And now Keris has a way to ensure just that, or at least the start of one. How convenient!

Her caste mark flares as night falls, and she begins to move. She starts with the town directly atop the flooded mineshaft. Most of the population is asleep soon after dusk - with no real artificial light save torches, there’s little that can be done the dark. It’s no effort to go through the sleeping, silent houses and touch a cheek here, a shoulder there or an outflung hand, letting tiny grey seeds slip into their flesh and come to rest beneath their hearts.

The nightwatchmen are harder, but not enormously so. Keris is very, very stealthy, and she doesn’t need to see. All she needs do is bury her face in the ground to hide the glow of her caste mark and lie in wait along the paths they patrol. A root-tendril from a lock of hair feels not much different from a branch or bush as it brushes against a hand or ankle, and then the tiny leech-seed is in them and Keris can continue.

Keris is much more sneaky than a ghost. Ghosts often cause things like mysterious cold feelings. Once she’s finished with that town, she consults the demjen on where the other settlements in the valley are. She probably can’t get all of them tonight, but... well, she moves very quickly, and she can afford to spend a week or so working through them while the “priest” travels up from the Shore Lands.


	21. Chapter 21

There are no dense populations in this area of An Teng. Even the ‘town’ here is a market town with a smaller permanent population than some Nexan blocks. The people are scattered up and down the rivers and in logging camps. Even compared to the population in the Shore Lands, the people here are taller and darker skinned - maybe the Shore Lands have more blood from travellers than they think.

Nonetheless, people will be people and they tend to gather in predictable places; especially along the rivers that thread through the Middle Lands in a thousand different routes to the shore. With Keris’s speed and stealth, it’s almost frighteningly easy enough for her to spread her Self-Seeds throughout the population.

She practices while she’s at it. People in her wake find wounds healed and illnesses in remission - a handful even find missing limbs grown back or terrible scars gone. Granted, the new flesh is hard and almost wood-like; as dark and rough as bark, but a healthy body is a healthy body. Such intensive surgeries take her longer, though, and she’s careful not to be seen in her experimentation. She leaves a vivid seven-petalled flower beside each person she heals, and congratulates Haneyl when she sleeps during the day.

Of course, this makes Rathan start crying, and necessitates paying him more attention in turn. Since she can’t really go around infecting people during the day, Keris spends most of the daylight hours underwater and asleep, devouring the rest of her new library’s collection of Salinan texts and reading them aloud to her souls. Rathan and Haneyl don’t seem to understand much of the theory - though Echo does turn up for a few lectures and nods knowingly - but they seem to enjoy the time spent with her nonetheless.

((Buying Occult up to 4.))

Haneyl has discovered the word ‘Mama’, and is already talking at a better-than-Rathan level. She is a very solemn and serious child who seems to be more at ease with Dulmea than Keris.

“Mama,” Haneyl asks Keris seriously. “Why is the sky black?”

Keris glances up reflexively at the inky night sky of her Domain, speckled with red stars. She can vaguely make out the face of the priest she’ll be wearing when she goes back to the Red Mountain family; drawn in ink on midnight.

“Because this place is built from my gifts and my powers, sweetheart,” she tells Haneyl, cuddling the little girl on her lap. “Those ones up there come from the Dragon, and he’s always dark and shadowy. Like your other mama!”

Keris has been sure to tell Haneyl about Sasi, in appropriately glowing terms. She’s not sure how long it will be, if ever, before they can meet for real, so she’s tried to convey as much of Sasi’s... Sasiness as she can.

((How long did Keris have to spend to infect everyone in the valley, btw?))  
((There’s maybe a thousand or so people living in the valley, with a few hundred close to the lake and its environments, and the rest further scattered. The demographics are what you might expect from this kind of rural farming community - high childhood mortality, lots of children born, but once you’ve survived your first five years it drops off. So, hmm, it takes her... hmm. Say on an average hour, she can get thirty-ish people done, accounting for sneaking time, it’s going to be... let’s say five days.))

Haneyl tilts her head consideringly, vivid green eyes staring up at Keris. She chews on one of her locks of hair. “But why am I not dark and shadowy?” she asks reasonably.

Keris raises a finger.

Keris lowers the finger.

“Be... cause... you’re... all pretty and grey-silver instead!” she says, and nods firmly. “Like how you didn’t get my red hair or dark skin. The stuff you got from Sasi was your colouring and,” she smiles fondly and kisses Haneyl on the forehead, “I think a lot of your personality too.”

Haneyl considers this. “Does the bit where Rathan cries a lot and makes lots and lots and lots of noise come from you then?” she asks. “Or the bit where Echo steals everything and breaks everything?” She pauses. “She’s very fast,” she adds, with great profundity. “She took my tea-cup.”

“I do not make lots of noise,” Keris says haughtily. “The one who made noise all the time was... was Rat. Rathan’s daddy. And Echo’s fastness and breaking-things-ness comes from... uh... I mean, it’s probably more...”

There is a pause.

“... okay that one might be more a joint thing,” she admits after a brief moment of reflection. “But probably more her other mama than me. Slightly. Well, the stealing is probably me. Did Dulmea get you another teacup?”

“She shouted at Echo and made her give it back,” Haneyl says, satisfaction in her voice. “But it was all scratched so Dulmea made me a new one. It’s better because it has _green_ bits on it. Green is the bestest colour. Why is Rathan so little and so stupid when he’s older than me?” she adds.

“Well, that’s because, um,” Keris says. “Because... that’s what he’s like. Now, Keris-mama has to go do talky-things for the Shashalme, okay?” She kisses her on the forehead again and deposits her back on the floor. “Are you sure you’re not feeling too tired from helping me plant seeds in all those people?”

Haneyl shakes her head. “I’m fine!” she insists. “I’m not sleepy at all! Not like Rathan who’s just a baby who sleeps most of the time when he’s not crying!”

Despite her words, she looks like she’s swaying on her feet and her eyes are drooping.

Keris can’t help but grin. “Then you won’t mind giving me your opinion on a new tune I’ve written?” She gently starts to play, and while Haneyl makes an impressive effort to stay awake and critically judge the music with a serious and intent expression, she’s sagged over to one side and very quietly snoring after only a couple of minutes.

Keris adjusts her to a more comfortable sleeping position, but makes no attempt to move her. Her daughter-soul has a habit of putting down hair-roots whenever she falls asleep, which is why Keris has already learnt to make sure she’s on the bed _before_ she drifts off, rather than trying to move her there afterwards.

With Haneyl settled and sleepily claiming yet another pillow by threading tiny roots into every inch of the stuffing, Keris opens her eyes to early morning in the outside world. Donning her priestly visage again and grabbing a gnarled stick for use as a staff, she makes her way back into White Bridge Rising Over Water with the hobbling step of an old man whose knees and hips are complaining more than a bit about the amount of travel they’ve been seeing lately.

The heat has let off for the past few days - or maybe it was just cooler in the steeper valleys where the morning cool lingers for longer. The deep water over the flooded shaft certainly helped matters. Either way, it’s scorching on the bridge-city, and Keris is not faking her relief at the cool when she’s welcomed into the castle.

“Baroness,” she greets Joyous Raven with a bow when the woman finds time to see her. “It’s a pleasure to see you again. I was graced with a vision that told me to return here?” Her tone rises a little at the end; a question as to why.

The woman clasps her hands together. “Yes, no doubt. But come. First, tea and fruit, elder one. It is too hot out there.” Well, isn’t that nice of her, Keris thinks. It is very hot outside.

After some very nice tea and some gorgeously cooling fruit, Keris sets her cup down with a little ‘clink’.

“I was visited in my dreams by a servant of the Sower, who told me to return here and offer my aid,” she says. “Am I to understand that she appeared to you in person?”

Joyous Raven crosses her hands on her lap, smoothing down her robes. “Yes, revered one,” she says, dropping her voice. “Indeed. The divine spirit was a maiden of the flowers, entwined in vines.”

“Ah, yes.” Keris nods. “One of the Blossoms of the Twelve-Petalled Flower; the Sower’s most trusted servants. May I ask what she visited for?”

“She helped cure the lung-blight of my father in law with her mighty divine powers,” Joyous Raven says. “He now breathes with ease and no longer coughs up blood.”

“A wondrous gift. You must have pleased the Sower greatly.” Keris eyes the woman from under her lashes, wondering if she’s going to bring up the sacrifices.

“The divine one wished for me to learn to pray in certain... less normal ways,” Joyous Raven says, reluctantly, after Keris’ cunning social gambit of out-waiting her pays off.

Keris cocks her head as if thinking, then allows her eyes to light up. “Ah. The ritual sacrifice of animals, yes?”

“There is... much bloodshed in what the Sower desires. I fear that it may draw attention of baleful spirits linked to the Pale Mistress,” she says, tone guarded.

Keris hums thoughtfully. “You make an excellent point, Baroness. The spirits are divine and wise, but in their strength they sometimes think little of mortal fears.” Internally, she’s quietly kicking herself for not thinking of that. “Hmm. There are other ways to worship. Less formal, but safer for the lands of An Teng. I will see if I can divine another way to please the Sower, if that would help you.”

Her relief looks genuine. “That would be excellent, revered one,” she says gratefully. “It is not that I am not thankful, but the spirits serving the Pale Mistress would bring plague and sickness upon us. It is already the height of Fire, and her servants spread malaria across the land.”

Keris bows to her from a sitting position. “Then I will see what I can do, Baroness, to the best of my ability.”

Later that evening, meditating in her room and studying the scroll of the Sower’s cult spread out in her Domain’s library, she is somewhat less gracious about it.

“Dammit dammit dammit dammit dammit!” she curses. “Dammit! Stupid past-me! Why didn’t you think of this? Urgh!”

“Is something wrong, child?” Dulmea asks with a warning raised eyebrow at the uncouth language. Keris barely notices, pacing back and forth in front of the table the scroll is laid on and chewing on her hair.

“I designed it too well; I didn’t leave enough gaps,” she explains, half to Dulmea and half to herself. “The cult... it’s... oh, how to... what I said about things being like living things. The cult, it’s like an animal, like something alive? Or... just think of it that way for now, not the point. The point is, if it’s like an animal, it’s... it’s got set in its ways. It _thinks_ a certain way. If I try to add a way to sacrifice animals that’s, I dunno, bloodless and peaceful and rainbows, it just won’t work; the cult won’t take it and it won’t go to the Shashalme. Whatever new ritual I invent has to fit with its... its personality, its instincts.”

She groans, and flops over onto a chair. “And its instincts are _really hungry_ and want to plant seeds in things and make them belong to it. Because I designed it to funnel prayer to the Shashalme. Really, really well. Uuurgh.”

Keris pauses, thinks for a moment, and perks up considerably.

“I... uh, don’t follow,” Dulmea says.

“It’s really hard to add a ritual for animal sacrifice to the cult that won’t have the same problems as the one it already has,” Keris summarises distractedly, and raises her voice. “Haneyl?” she calls, looking round for... right, she’s vanished off into the stacks. “Haneyl! Sweetheart! I need your help!”

The little dryad is eventually located with her hands blending into a largeish book, which she attempts to hide behind her back with an innocent expression. Given that it is wider than she is, this doesn’t work very well, but Keris doesn’t really care at the moment.

“Haneyl, sweetie! I need your help with something. If you wanted an animal sacrificed to you - and you weren’t _right there_ and couldn’t just put roots into it - how would you want people to do it?”

“Animal... saccyfaced?” Haneyl tries.

“If you wanted people to give you a living thing from far away,” Keris explains. “As a present. And they couldn’t just send it to you. How would you want them to mark it as yours?”

Haneyl frowns, her tongue sticking out as she thinks as hard as she can. “You can get presents that way?” she asks. “Dulmea and you only give me things.” She pauses. “Can I have more things? And more stuff?”

“If you give me a good idea here, I will totally get you more stuff,” Keris promises. “I’ll get you a bunch of pretty emeralds the same colour as your eyes that you can hang from your tree.”

Haneyl’s eyes light up. Literally. They flash green in the same way that Keris’ do when she looks for people’s strength. “Grandmama-Dulmea has said things about being polite and proper,” she says, dropping from her usual Rivertongue into Dulmea-sounding Old Realm. “I’d want a note! A nice pretty note saying who it was from and how pretty I was! And... and it should be buried under my trees! Pretty things! Like... like green things. Seven green things because seven is the best number. And they should be shiny and pretty and...”

The conversation is interrupted by Echo’s not-loud waving and capering in their vision. She pulls a face, clearly indicating that it’s ribbons which should be her present.

“No! Echo! Go away! This is my time! Mine!” Haneyl shouts back.

Keris kisses her on the forehead. “Thank you Haneyl, that’s very helpful. And, hmm. Yeah, praise might work, if there was enough of it. The Shashalme likes being praised. And some number-work, too... yeah. This is brilliant! I’ll be sure to remember how you want things sent to you if I tell anyone to do so from outside here.”

She looks up. “And yes, Echo, I’ve got plans for your ribbons. Very clever plans that I’m going to carry out next time I go back to Malfeas, so you can have pretty ribbons that you can wear without them dissolving.” She winks. “And maybe some gloves too, so you can pick other things up without breaking them either.”

Keris’ quick thoughts and yes, hugging her tight in her hair manage to stop a Haneyl explosion. She doesn’t like Echo interrupting her her-time. Not at all. The next morning, she presents Joyous Raven with an altered ritual, trading the spilling of blood for a slightly longer ritual, and burying the animal under the trees along with twelve prayer strips, each praising the generosity of the Sower and asking for their benevolence, wisdom and guidance.

Keris watches the change in expressions of Joyous Raven. “This is... not unlike other forms of worship, but sacrifice must be done with care,” she says. “The Pale Mistress loves death.”

“We must be careful not to attract her attention,” Keris agrees. “With the grace of the Sower, we can hope that she is not drawn to this area above others. But maybe it would be wise to make the sacrifices away from the town, just in case.” She purses her lips. “That might also prevent the Immaculate Faith from turning a harsh eye to the proper regard being given to the gods,” she adds, as if just thinking of it.

“Perhaps,” she says.

“How has the barony been doing?” Keris inquires, steering the topic into safer waters. She asks after the good that the money from her last visit is doing, and tries to get a handle on which way Joyous Raven is turning in the matter of stepping up her worship of the Sower. Fortunately, Keris’ tone sounds appropriately careful and elderly, so the baroness assumes she’s talking about spiritual matters that might interest a priest, rather than insinuating that she cannot protect her domain or alleging financial mismanagement. “It is summer,” she says with a weary sigh. “People grow sick from the Pale Mistress’ plagues. At least here we are above running water, for I have heard rumours her dead-things walk the jungles. There is a reason I do not wish to encourage them with bloodshed.”

((... did Keris actually see any dead things in the jungle?))  
((She did not))  
((... well, she did.))  
((But they were dead things, not Dead things))  
((: P))

“Merely rumours, I think,” the old priest reassures her. “I have some skill in sensing the wellbeing of the forests, and these seem healthy and untainted by the stench of death.”

“I hope you are right, wise one, but I will not let up my precautions,” Joyous Raven says, brow lined.

“Wise,” the priest agrees. “Well, I am glad to have helped you with the rituals.” He hesitates. “Are there any cases of malaria in the town? I’m no spirit, but I may be able to offer some help if the local healers are struggling.”

“There is always malaria in the season of Fire,” she says, shaking her head.

Keris lingers in the town for a few days, doing what she can to treat some of the more severe malaria cases. Without the use of magic it’s harder, but the experience she’s picked up in how bodies work (from the inside) and in the principles of the sciences help somewhat.

((Cog+Occult for ANTI-MALARIA AID: 2+4+2 stunt+3 Kimmy ExSux {endlessly giving, patronage and kindness are real}=8. Lulz 7+3=10 sux.))

She gets quite a lot done. Indeed, she stuns the local healers with her innovative use of the treatments they know, and leaves them with some tips on how to apply them more effectively. But in the end, she can only stand to stay a little while longer. The sting of Sasi’s curtness has faded, and Keris misses her. After only four days spent helping, she says her goodbyes and heads back down towards the Shore Lands.

It’s a relief to get back to the Shore Lands. The ocean breeze is a relief from the heat, at least a little bit.

A festival is going on when Keris arrives. Some kind of street party to the Golden Lord, with great golden and brown cloth banners being paraded through the streets.

Keris raises her eyebrows and avoids it, making for Sasi’s house, and enters through the window as is her wont. Having travelled through the night, it’s mid-morning as she arrives, and she lets herself in quietly for the sake of Sasi’s usual morning lie-in.

Sasi does not appear to have gone to bed. She’s looking quite mussed and like she hasn’t changed from last morning. She’s working on... some kind of demonology thing. Keris eyes it as she moves up behind Sasi, who doesn’t appear to have noticed her entry. It looks familiar - it’s definitely based on the same Malfean principles she was taught in Hell.

“... when did you last sleep?” she asks softly, aware that Sasi may have been working hard enough recently that she’s forgotten.

“Oh. Keris.” Sasi says. “Night before last.” She pauses, and gets back to work on... Keris pales. It’s something to do with the Unquestionable. She isn’t sure why Sasi is doing that, but... it’s certainly far beyond her knowledge of the sorcerous arts. Deciding that it’s something Sasi probably needs to finish, Keris seats herself behind her lover and starts massaging her shoulders, working out the impressive amount of tension knots that Sasi has built up over the past week and a half.

She sighs in satisfaction, and relaxes into Keris. “What time is it?” she asks. Keris realises that in this almost pitch black room, she might genuinely not know.

“Early morning. Sixteenth of Rising Fire. Obnoxiously hot and sunny outside, and there’s also a parade to the Golden Lord going on,” Keris reports. “The good news is that we’re two steps closer to being able to take a look at that Catalyst, when we have the time.”

“Mmm.” Sasi takes a breath. “Keris,” she says, “if you had to make a sacrifice, would you? Of something important to you?”

Keris cocks her head, opening her mouth to give a glib answer, and then pauses. This seems serious. She takes a moment to give it some real thought.

“It... depends, I guess. On what it was and why it was important to me. And on why I had to do it.” She squeezes Sasi’s shoulders gently. “Has the Red Moon asked you for something?”

“Just... considering possibilities,” Sasi says darkly. “A few.”

Well that doesn’t sound ominous at all. Keris leans forward to hug Sasi from behind.

“There are things I’ve sacrificed that hurt to,” she says, thinking back to Rat, and to her induction into Sorcery. “And that I regret. But I think most of them I did... most of them I did to try and make me and the people I love... not happy, maybe, but hurt as little as possible. I wouldn’t want to give away something that I’d look back on and wish I’d done it differently as well as regretting that it happened at all.”

Sasi sighs and slumps forwards. “That would be nice, wouldn’t it?” she mutters.

“What’s wrong?” Keris moves round to kneel next to her. “Whatever you’re considering, it’s something bad.” And maybe that was why Sasi was so snappish, she realises. Maybe she’s been thinking about this for a while. “Is... is it something to do with your baby?” she whispers. It’s the worst option she can think of that an Unquestionable might have asked for, and the thought makes her really, really want to stab something. She forces that urge down for the moment, keeping her voice soft. “Sasi? I want to help, and maybe sharing it will make it easier to plan for what to do? You know you can count on my help, whatever it is.”

((Attempting to play off protectiveness for the baby and careful-planning instincts. 3+5+2 stunt++4 Sasi Principle channel+4 Kimmy ExSux {secrets, endlessly giving, bottled-up fury}=10. 1+4+4=9 sux; Principle gives successes rather than dice due to TLA.))

“It’s not something she’s asked for,” Sasi says softly. Too softly. Barely breathing it. “It’s something I’d do. Reach out. For the Third Circle. For the Primordial Circle. Power to summon. Power to banish.”

Keris draws a quick breath in. That’s... wow. That’s... that’s terrifying power. Literally. The thought terrifies her.

“Wh...” she stumbles, gulping. “Wh-what were... um, s-sorry, that might be private, I just... um, Sacrifices usually follow a, a pattern, don’t they? They’re all similar.” She gulps again. “Do you, uh, do you have an idea what it might be that you’d give up? I’m not asking if you don’t want to tell me!” she adds hastily. “Just, uh...”

Her hands are trembling, she realises. She stuffs them under her knees to keep them still.

((Oh, Keris. Healthy terror of the Unquestionable. More than the Yozis in some ways, because at least the Yozis are so vast and distant that they’re unlikely to notice one little Exalt and it’s hard to know how they’ll react to things so you’re partly going on luck anyway, whereas an Unquestionable is something monstrously powerful than you can feasibly _offend_.))

“A sacrifice made for the wrong reasons would be the wrong sacrifice,” Sasi says softly. “There are easy ones to make. And they would be wrong.”

Keris starts to speak a couple of times, then gives up and rests her head against Sasi’s side. “It scares me,” she admits. “The thought of that much power. And the Unquestionable. And how it might... change you.”

She attempts a wobbly smile. “Sacrifices are meant to make you stronger, right? Casting off things that were holding you back.” A shaky little half-laugh, half-sigh. “I can’t think of anything about you that could be improved. You’re already perfect. But if you want the Primordial Circle, I guess...”

Keris pauses again, and takes a slow breath for courage. “Then I guess the question isn’t so much what it’s worth to you, as much as what’s holding you back from it that needs to be cast off?”

“I don’t want to make the sacrifice. I... just want the power,” Sasi says quietly. “If I can summon the Unquestionable, I know the Blood Red Moon will forgive any failure - and if she doesn’t, I can free any other Third Circle who would side with me against it. I don’t... I want a better way out. But she scares me. She’s unpredictable. I need to be safe from her.”

Keris opens her mouth, pauses, and closes it again firmly, deciding against voicing the thought that’s just occurred to her.

“The valley is halfway ours,” she says instead, awkwardly changing the subject. “Haneyl and I planted seeds in the people living there. Subtle ones; nothing easily noticed, but they won’t want to act against me. And I stole us a place to stay.”

“Oh,” Sasi says, still brooding.  Keris waits a moment longer to see if she has anything else to say, and then sighs.

“You’re not going to make a decision by losing any more sleep over it and hunching over a desk,” she points out. “Come to bed, I’ll give you a massage, and you can try to get some sleep. Think about it closer to dusk with a clearer head.”


	22. Chapter 22

It’s hot and sweltering even at dawn in An Teng. It’s _always_ hot and sweltering. Keris goes off for a swim to think.

It is about time, she thinks, that she did something about her orders. Calibration is approaching, and while she’s made excellent progress on what the Shashalme wanted and helped Sasi out a lot, so far her success at ruining Dynastic trade routes has only really amounted to making an alliance with the Lintha.

With that in mind, she heads up to Dragon’s Jaw - she can fit in a visit to Darling Yellow again after she’s finished her business - and spends a little time snooping around the harbourmaster’s office. A nice fat Dynastic ship full of useful things she can steal would be just the thing, especially if she can then pass the ship onto Lintha Gajui Narooj and reaffirm him as an ally.

Rummaging through the papers, Keris finds the full log of arrivals and departures for the past month. Looking at it, there’s a pretty constant flow of ships headed to and from the Realm coming from this port - of course, Realm ships pay less tax so Realm-owned shipping dominates the trade here, and legally the Realm forbids An Teng from using non-Realm shipping to move goods to ports which aren’t satrapies or part of the metropolitan Realm. The vessels mostly used are large junks, travelling up and down the coast, and the ones reinforced for crossing the Inner Sea to the Realm are easily distinguishable.

She gives the scroll a quick kiss, returns everything to the way she found it, and sneaks back out of the office again like a ghost. Then she heads over to the shanty-town of the misbegotten to find Darling Yellow.

She has a gift for her newest priestess.

When she arrives, a little ‘court’ seems to be in session. The wizened old lady is listening to two other women argue about who should get the kids of a goat which have just been born, when one owns the billygoat and the other owns the nanny. Apparently someone promised someone something, but someone else disagrees that it was a promise, and so on.

Amused at the argument and bemused at why they don’t just divvy the kids up between them and leave it at that, Keris blends into the wall and waits.

... it’s actually pretty interesting, to be honest. She finds herself trying to follow the web of promises and agreements and debts as the women speak over each other. Darling Yellow sits there calmly, her head tilted slightly to listen with her good ear, with only a faint crease of concentration on her wrinkled forehead to show that she’s paying attention and not staring into space.

In the end and after an hour of bickering, Darling Yellow seems to have heard enough to come to a conclusion. “I have heard,” she says. “Now I shall judge. The arrangement was not made in front of witnesses without an interest in the outcome, so I cannot be sure it was made. In the lack of such proof, therefore, I will follow our custom. The smallest of the kids shall go to Blessed Rain, for the smallest kid is the one who has taken the least of the mother’s milk. The others stay with Calm Panther. I have spoken.”

With that said, Darling Yellow is carried back to her little temple. From the sound of the crowd, no one is delighted with this conclusion, but it is generally agreed to be fair enough. Keris gets the feeling that Darling Yellow is viewed as a very cautious, conservative judge who will scrupulously follow custom, even when the onlookers would prefer otherwise.  Personally, Keris had been starting to feel rather tempted to steal the goat and kids for herself just to shut the women up. They’d been getting rather loud and agitated by the end there.

Relieved at the quiet, Keris slips into the temple after her priestess, reconfiguring her Amulet with a thought. This time she’s clothed in mangrove roots, winding round her body and covering her enough for modesty’s sake, with long leafy willow-branches growing down from them like a dress.

Keris is rather faster than an old woman being carefully carried, and so she’s already standing in the middle of the little temple when Darling Yellow gets there.  There’s a gasp of surprise from the two younger women carrying the old lady when they see the scantily clad mangrove goddess waiting for them in the tiny temple.

“Sacred lady,” croaks Darling Yellow, gesturing for the women to carry her down to the shrine and ease her down. She then shoos them out. “You honour this humble place once more.”

“Darling Yellow,” Keris smiles. “I find myself happy, and looking to share. I have an offer for you.”

She raises her fingers and lets them split into roots, which coil for a moment before folding back into fingers.

“Would you like to walk again, my priestess?”

Her eyes widen and Keris hears the gasp of breath. “I... I should like that very much,” she says in a tiny voice, averting her eyes. “It was such ill luck, to have a roof give way and both feet turn black, but we without family are used to life without luck.”

Keris nods, moving closer to examine her stumps. “Very well. I’ll have to grow new flesh from your legs; like a tree putting out a new branch.” She glances up. “It’ll take several hours. Is there anything else you need to do today?”

“Nothing I cannot delay,” she says quickly.

Keris nods. “Tell your assistants not to disturb us, then, and we can start.”

Once Darling Yellow has called one of the young women who attend to her in and given strict instructions that she’s to be left alone, Keris kneels at her feet - huffing a soft breath of laughter at the irony of a goddess kneeling before her priestess - takes both ankles into her lap, and plunges her roots in.

She tries to make it as comfortable as possible for the woman, massaging the withered muscles from the inside, but she knows from experience that it’s a very disconcerting feeling; the sensation of your flesh being teased and altered from within.

((Right. So this is a Cog + Occult roll, and it’s Difficulty 6 because coaxing flesh into fully working feet is non trivial.))  
((Okay. So. 2+4+2 stunt+3 Compassion+3 Kimmy ExSux {endlessly giving, patronage and kindness}=11. Whoa. 8+3= _11_ successes, nearly doubling what was needed.  
Mutation-wise I have up to 4 points of mutations, and will thus give her, hmm.  
Cosmetic (0) - her feet look more like the grey bark of the mangroves than human skin.  
Steady-Internal (3) - Roots anchor her to the ground when she would otherwise lose her footing, adding 3 dice to any Physique roll to keep her footing from knockback or unstable terrain.))

It takes several hours, and Keris’s hands are tired again by the time she’s done. Darling Yellow is remarkably stoic about it, save for a few sharp breaths of discomfort as Keris teases gnarled bones outward and built ropy flesh out around them. She has to go up the woman’s legs as well, strengthening the muscles there from their degraded states so that Darling Yellow will be able to stand at all, feet or no.

The new feet aren’t human ones. Oh, their shape is fine, but the skin of her legs transitions into the grey bark of the mangroves at the amputation line, and Keris can feel the wood’s potential to put down roots. ‘Don’t,’ she warns it as she finishes coaxing bark-skin over the soles and separates out five toes on each foot. ‘Only to stay standing. Don’t put down roots otherwise.’

Nevertheless, the look on the old woman’s face as - shakily, and with help from Keris - she gets to her feet for the first time in years or decades is enough to bring tears to Keris’s eyes.  She’s only a little taller than Keris herself. The Tengese aren’t giants, not like the Northeners, and she’s short by their standards. And she too cries as she stands.

Keris leans up to press a kiss to her forehead - one with a jolt to it, if the way Darling Yellow gasps and brings a hand up to the spot is any indication. “What will you tell your people?” she asks.

She pales. “I do not know,” she says quietly. “The Immaculates will not like this.”

Keris voices a grumbling noise of disapproval. “Of course. They won’t lift a finger to help people themselves, but as soon as someone else does they find the time to care all of a sudden.” She thinks briefly. “Keep it from them as long as possible. They won’t be able to find me - and they’ll regret it if they do - so it’s you we should worry about. I’ll see if I can send a servant to protect you - or at least warn you of their coming with enough time for you to escape. If things go that far, I’ll find a safe place for you.”

Darling Yellow swallows. “It is a hard life, as a priestess of the misbegotten,” she says. “We need what favour of the gods we can to survive, and so they watch us. I will do as you say.”

Keris rests a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “You’re my people now, and I your goddess. I won’t abandon you to their cruelty.” She pauses. “With that in mind, would you happen to know of any especially important shipments leaving An Teng from the Realm or the Immaculates in the next few days?”

Darling Yellow shakes her head. “I wish I did,” she says. “But times are hard and they’re taking on fewer misbegotten workers in the docks.”

“Tch. Well, I’ll make do.” Keris smiles at Darling Yellow and gives her a nod of respect, which the woman returns with a deferential bow. “Enjoy my gift to you, Darling Yellow. Until the next time.”

Back in the harbour shortly thereafter, she takes her time, checking all of the ships in Dragon’s Jaw and then doubling back to the City of the Steel Lotus to check those in harbour there as well, looking for the reinforced hulls of those junks bound for the Inner Sea. There is a big one, a five-master called the Mercy of Hesiesh that’s carrying a cargo of silver and gems from the Far Lands back to the Realm. It has a escort of four smaller armed merchant ships and merchant navy marines. It’ll be leaving in the next few days. There’s also a smaller three master carrying a cargo of Tengese opium and spices.

The Mercy of Hesiesh, Keris decides, will be her target. She can hit it at night, decapitate the smaller ships first, and then take the big one - and all that silver and all those gems will be hers. Well, most of them. She might have to give up some of the silver to her po to keep it happy.

Accordingly, she returns to Sasi’s house and sends a message to Lintha Gajui Narooj. She tells him of the target, its time of departure, and the rough route it will take, and then moves onto the plan. That requires another cherub, and she lays out the rough idea. Keris will follow the ship as it leaves the harbour. They’d see a ship-to-ship attack coming, but the Lintha don’t need boats to traverse the water.

Narooj will sail across the Mercy’s course ahead of it, and drop Lintha warriors off in the water. They’ll grab onto the ships as they pass, under the cover of darkness, and Keris will take that as her cue to silently kill the men on deck. The Lintha can then take the helm and go below to deal with the remainder of the crews, sailing on as though nothing were wrong to avoid alerting the main ship of the attack. Once all four escort ships have been subverted and their crews killed, Keris can lead the attack on the Mercy itself, even as the Lintha fleet comes in to distract it.

Not only will this give them the advantage of surprise, she adds, it will also give them five ships that should, if everything goes according to plan, be completely undamaged and of exceptional quality. These, and everyone on the armed merchant ships, will go to the Lintha, while Keris will claim the cargo of the Mercy for her work in the Great Mother’s name.

She spends several hours bent over her maps in the course of her planning, tracing out the paths of the ships by the winds and making frequent references to the more-up-to-date but less detailed and valuable maps that Sasi has in her study. She needs to attack at nightfall, which means working out where the ships will actually _be_ at dusk, and then she needs somewhere where the Lintha can wait in the water until the ships arrive, and where the ships won’t be able to respond easily to aid each other or escape if the plan goes wrong.

((Cog + (Lower of Command + Travel) to plan out your naval assault.  
Oh _dear_ , Keris~))  
((... : (  
Um, okay. Uh. What level stunt does that count as?))  
((3 dice))  
((Mwaa haa. Ooo, can I get the tengervel out of this?))  
((Only if you succeed))  
((Excellent. Then I'll spend another WP to channel a Principle, so that it's 2+0+3 Social Saboteur+1 bonus {attacking a weak spot}+3 stunt+3 Be Rich and Comfortable+1 Kimmy ExSux=12.  
3+1=4 sux. : S))  
((So, Keris has a... fairly good by mortal standards attack plan.))  
((Yeah. Sigh. She’s more used to doing things herself.))  
((... man, and I was rolling the equivalent of 14 dice there, or “peak human”.))

Sasi, when she gets back that night, is treated to a fidgety, nervous Keris who doesn’t need much prodding - or in fact any prodding at all - to spill the details of her plan.

“Hmm,” says Sasi. “I suppose that makes sense. If that’s a high value cargo, though, they may well have a Dragonblooded captain - or even a small sworn brotherhood. Some Lost Eggs make their money protecting and aiding such convoys - captains, sorcerers and scouts alike.”

Keris nods. “I’m counting on surprise, the darkness and my speed in the water,” she says. “Also my poison - I only need to get them once, and I’ll be looking like a Lintha, so they won’t expect Exalted skill. Not until they see my caste mark, and by then it should be too late.”

“You could just sink the vessels,” Sasi suggests, “and not endanger yourself by engaging with the Dragonblooded.”

Keris wrinkles her nose. “That’d waste the ships, though,” she says. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, if I don’t get them on the first attack I’ll totally just dive overboard and sink it. But I’d like to at least preserve the escort. The Lintha will value Realm-quality ships.” She considers for a moment, lips pursed. “That said, silver and gems won’t care if they get wet,” she adds. “So sinking the Mercy wouldn’t hurt my share. I’ll keep it intact if I can, but yeah, I’ll be ready to sink it if I need to. If there’s a Sworn Brotherhood onboard I’ll just sink it first. What about you?” she adds, curling onto the bed. “You’ve been planning, too. Any new thoughts?”

“I... am working to make a little cult adoring her in the nobility,” Sasi says warily. “Playing off the mysticism and the allure of the Lintha, without actually involving those fools with... those other fools. Orgiastic rituals, blood sacrifice - everything bored younger children who aren’t going to inherit will want to flirt with danger with.”

Keris nods. “A cult among the nobles and a demesne - I’ll ask Narooj about her when I see him. Those are good gifts.”

((Cog+... uh... let’s say Politics; 2+1=3, 2 sux.))

A thought occurs to her, and she cocks her head. “The Althing is neutral ground, isn’t it? Diplomatic something-or-other. She wouldn’t be allowed to hurt you there even if she was angry.”

“Yes,” Sasi says. “If I could get there, she’d have to go through Unquestionable Lilunu - and Lilunu will understand that ‘undead everywhere’ was a totally unforeseen consequence. The Blood Red Moon, however, is erratic and obsessive.”

“So it’s a question of getting there before she can get to you.” Keris hums, plucking a few thoughtful chords from the air. “Basically, you need to be me. Oh! Maybe I could carry you again? In your shadow-shape, like I did back in Matasque. Or would the Green Sun stop that, since he doesn’t cast shadows?”

“Light hurts in that form,” Sasi says, “and without darkness, I can be seen.”

“It doesn’t matter that you can be seen if you can’t be caught, and I’m not sure there’s anything that the Red Moon can send after me short of herself that I can’t outrun, evade or kill,” Keris points out. “Hmm. What if I hid you under my Amulet? That might solve both problems.”

Sasi raises her eyebrows. “That would... certainly be a thing,” she says, and then seems to consider it. “We could probably travel most of the way across the desert fine,” she says. “It’s only when we’re in the City that Ligier’s light is present.”

“If I make a sacrifice to Cecelyne and ask Her to take us to one of the innermost layers so we don’t have far to go...” Keris thinks out loud. “Hmm. I might be able to cut through the catacombs here and there as well.” She looks up at Sasi. “You’re the one who’d be hurting from the light if my Amulet didn’t block it, so it’s up to you,” she decides. “Do you want to try it?”

“I... don’t think I have a choice,” Sasi says. “And your amulet is reliable, yes?” She pauses. “And I might be able to hide myself as a peronelle, just in case.”

Keris hugs her. “I won’t let you down!” she promises, and pauses as the thought of wearing Sasi like a peronelle brings up several related thoughts along with several more related images.

“... though...” she adds in a very serious, responsible tone, “we might want to test that it works first. Several times. In depth. You know, just to be totally sure.”

Sasi considers that. “Yes,” she agrees fervently. “If it won’t work, there’s no point in planning for it.”

Keris takes Sasi on several runs over the next few days - around the city, through the woods and one brief trip into a river to see if Sasi will be adversely affected by lack of air if Keris needs to swim for some reason.

Sasi... isn’t actually that pleasant to touch when she’s in that shadow form. She’s unpleasantly cool against Keris’ skin, and there’s something cloying and oily about her. She doesn’t leave a residue, but it feels like there should be one. It makes Keris want to sit in bright light to make the bone-chilling ickyness go away.

((... does she need to breathe in that form?))  
((She does not. And Sasi has also observed when she was running away that she doesn’t need to eat or drink.))  
((Useful!))

Still, it works, and that’s all that really matters. Keris can handle five days of ickyness if it delivers Sasi safe and sound into the Althing. Where she can make up for it with much nicer touching, at length, along with maybe some presents of shiny things or the like.

She fills the rest of her time trying out some more artwork and - after touring the markets and finding some incredibly pretty High Lands bracelets in silver - deciding that learning a bit about how they work the metal here might be worth doing. Especially since she’s going to have so much of it soon.

There are a few silversmiths working here in the Shore Lands, but the real masters of the art dwell up in the High Lands close to the mines. Still with some time and some work at blending in and probably charming some smiths, she could certainly pick up a competent level of working, though she’d have to go to the masters to progress further. Something to do later, she decides. After the heist.

Junks such as those used by the Realm are shockingly fast compared to slower vessels, with their many masts and advanced rigging. With the best winds, Keris hears that with a Dragonblooded captain they can travel four hundred miles in a day. Even under more normal circumstances, with a good wind they can easily manage two hundred in a day.

Still, four hundred miles a day is still slower than Keris’s preternatural quickness in the water. The Mercy of Hesiesh leaves its harbour on the 21st of Ascending Fire with an unknown tagalong swimming in its wake. Clinging to the bottom of each hull in turn with an ear pressed against the wood and a green brand glowing on her forehead, Keris listens to the crews and judges the threats they pose to her from the hiss and crackle of their Essence.

They’re only just underway when Keris feels the surge of air and cold and lightning up above. She can hear the Old Realm chanting of someone who speaks with a similar accent to Sasi, and feels that he’s weaker than her, but considerably more powerful than any mortal. The creak of the captain’s wheel tastes of slightly weaker Wood and plants and flowers, and there’s a metallic clinking of an armoured figure beside the captain that burns like a fire, of equal power.

After the chanting, the wind is incredibly strong and consistent. If Keris has to ballpark it, they’re breaking even the 400 miles a day speed, since she can hear the singing of the wind gods and they’re charming the mast gods and sail gods into not breaking.

((Enlightenment 5 Air-Aspected, did something Keris thinks is sorcery.  
Enlightenment 4 Wood Aspected captain.  
Enlightenment 4 Fire Aspect in heavy armour.))  
((... well then. Looks like the ship is going to be sinking. Lawl heavy armour tee hee.))

Keris follows along cautiously. She’s much more powerful than any of them individually, but she’s nonetheless wary. If they’re awake when she launches the attack, she’ll just sink the ship, she decides. The Lintha might be able to rescue it from the bottom, and even if they can’t they’ll have the other four to keep them happy.

With that decided, it’s just a matter of keeping pace and waiting for nightfall.

((Cog + Travel))  
((2+0=2. Fail. But surely I can’t get _lost_ , right?))  
((... though I’m sure Keris would have managed it anyway if I’d botched.))  
((No, but Keris hasn’t realised that with the boosted sorcerous speed of these ships and a favourable wind, the Lintha won’t be able to make the rendezvous.))  
((Crap.))  
((Hee. I can RP it, then. : D))

Nightfall comes. With the incredible speed of these vessels, they’re far up the coast, leaving An Teng behind. Keris can see a rocky coastline to her right, and ahead, the last of the setting sun catching the on the white peak of the Imperial Mountain.

... wait, Keris realises. Where are the Lintha? They were meant to meet the ships at nightfall, just past the...

... oh.

With dawning horror, she looks around, and... yes, she recognises that rocky jutting-out-bit of coastline they’re passing. That’s... that’s way, way further ahead than where she’d thought the ship would be at dusk. They’ve already passed the ambush point - in broad daylight, well before the Lintha got there.

Which means she’s on her own for this.

Crap.

From what Keris thinks, the rocky shore is in fact the headland just before the open ocean. If she remembers the distances right and these ships really are going as fast as she thinks - five hundred miles a day! - then they may only take three or four days to reach the Realm. No wonder the Lintha can’t raid them!

The Air Aspect has retired to the captain’s quarters, as has the captain. The two men are awake, and quite noisy. The Fire Aspect is still on deck, though, and still in her armour.

((There are historic tea clippers which could manage four hundred miles a day. With an Exalted captain and sorcery, I added +25% to that.))

Well, so much for the plan, she thinks mournfully. It’s a pity. It was a good plan. It would have worked really well, probably.

She darts ahead of the ships, pouring on the speed to get some distance. Then she turns around, summons her Lance, and swims as fast as she can to meet the wooden hull of the Mercy of Hesiesh.

The hull of this thing is reinforced - no doubt to take the speed it travels at. Keris breaks through,and the burning fires of Malfeas char at the wood, burning the calking. There’s quite a sizeable hole in the bottom of the vessel, breaking through the double hull. It’s taking on water now.

((Making a surprise attack on the Fire Aspect to see if I can yank her off the deck in one go and leave her to drown. If not, I’ll do a Zoidberg and flit off to deal with the other ships.))  
((Then roll your join battle.))  
((Pool of 12, and I'll activate JIVA for 1m to add 3 autosux and gain 1wp back. 5+3=8 sux.))  
((Pool of 12 - Reaction 4 + Awareness 5 + Vigilant Sentry Style 3. 12 successes _ha ha ha so many 10s._ ))

“Alarm!” Keris hears deafeningly loudly, from a pair of lungs which are clearly strong enough to be heard all the way across a parade ground. “There are no rocks in this channel for that impact so beware undersea attackers!”

There’s a scrambling of feet all over the ship, and Keris hears the captain and the sorcerer immediately stop what they’re doing.

Keris darts around, whipping up the side of the ship and lashing out again with her Lance. Not with the lethal blade, but with the weighted chain at its other end. Vivid poison glints on the metal links as it hums through the night air. It wraps around the legs of the Fire Aspect, still wearing her heavy armour, and Keris gives an almighty yank to pull her off the side of the ship.

Flying through the air, Keris lashes out. The swordswoman dressed in a jade-plated buff coat is fast - incredibly fast. Almost faster than Keris. If she hadn’t started with a high block which switched to a low block when she realised Keris was going for her legs, she’d have blocked the chain. As it was, the ball sweeps under her block by mere inches and sweeps her feet out from under her sending her flying off...

... only for her to stab down into the deck, trying to anchor herself into the wood and stop her going off the edge. Embers glow in her dark hair as she strains against force on her leg.

The chain gives first. It doesn’t break, no, but the coiled chains slip down past the woman’s feet. There’s a painful-sounding impact as the tightly grip of the metal rips past her ankle, but she goes rocketing back up onto the deck with a crash from the sudden release of tension.

Growling in displeasure, Keris peels off and dives again, coming round to widen the hole in the bottom of the ship with another violent slash. Let the woman follow her down here if she wants to keep interfering.

((... ahaha. Of course, amusingly, Keris was in her LSD Lintha disguise because she thought she’d be meeting them for this, and she hasn’t taken it down yet. So she looks like HIGHBLOOD LINTHA at the moment.))

‘Echo,’ she calls, feeling malicious. ‘Come out and play. I have a ship for you to sink, and maybe some people inside as well!’

Echo twists out from behind her, her hair floating loose underwater, and she’s twirling her own mimic of the lance around like... well, like ribbons.

... is that what Echo means when she says she likes ribbons? Maybe she’ll have to find a second present for her at Calibration, Keris thinks idly. But then there’s no more time for thought, because she’s moving along the line of the hull and Echo is gleefully stabbing and cutting and hacking at everything in reach.

Echo is a _good_ girl. She opens wide cuts along the hull, wind-eroded slashes which penetrate deep in, and the green fires of the Demon Realm burn brighter and brighter. It’s taking on lots of water now and Keris can hear chanting from the sorcerer up on the deck, from next to the swordswoman and the captain. One - or maybe two - more Echo dashes should split it wide open, but she’ll have to be fast.

Pouring on the speed, Keris whips end over end and turns back, goring and slashing further at the already burning, leaking hull. This time Echo not only slices the rudder off, but slices the hull wide open down the keel. There’s a cracking sound as the masts give way, and the entire vessel seems to split apart. There’s a thunderous noise up above as some kind of spell detonates early - apparently she distracted the sorcerer and he lost focus.

Laughing victoriously, Keris flashes through the water, far faster than anything mortal could swim, tasting the water and listening for the three threats and the other four ships. From a cautious distance, lurking low in the water, she watches as one of the other vessels comes in to try to evacuate everyone they can. The ship is sinking fast, though - it’ll be down in mere minutes, so even if they get the people off, they’ll not get the cargo. Silver is heavy.

She ignores the wreck for now. Her next target is elsewhere. She heads for the escort ship furthest from the chaos and swims silently alongside it for a moment, listening to the men onboard. They’re confused and at full alert - somehow the swordswoman’s shout has woken everyone onboard up in a way Keris has never seen before.

((All mortal?))  
((There’s a few various god- and elemental-bloods among them from a mixture of backgrounds - the one at the wheel seems to be a water-elemental blood))  
((Hmm. Right. How hard does Keris think it would be to take them with Echo’s help?))  
((Unlike the DBs, these guys don’t have surprise negators. As long as she has stealth, she can have a chance of... vanishing them))

Grinning ferociously, Keris wills her Amulet to cover her in a wood-patterned cloak, shifting it with her movement as she inches up the side of the ship. She waits until she’s up onto the deck and has a good line through the mob.

Then she moves, Echo trailing out behind her, in a sudden burst of speed and scything blades. She knows Echo’s reach and ignores those close to her, surging Essence into her Lance to unfold it and picking of those further away.

((Physique + Lower of Subterfuge + Melee, Diff 7 to murder all the dudes and dudettes without being seen. Can upgrade to Diff 10 to kill everyone on all the ships not including the one the DBs are moving onto without being seen.))  
((5+5+3 Friagem Serpent+1 Style bonus {attacking from surprise}+2 stunt+5 Adorjani ExSux+1wp autosux=16. 8+6=14 sux.))

Keris is silence, and she is death. The escort ships have no Dragonblooded on deck to rally them; no peerless Exalted excellence to resist her. They are wheat before the whirling blade, and Echo is a terrible and enthusiastic reaper. First one, then two, then three ships go dark, drifting unmanned on the currents. Keris stays only long enough to drop the anchor on each one before moving on to the next.

The ships die... and the Dragonblooded don’t even know. Not until they start signalling the other vessels and get no response. By then, Keris is already back under their new ship. This one is weaker than the Mercy of Hesiesh. She promised the Lintha four ships, but they weren’t here so they’ll just have to deal with it. Three ships for nothing is nothing to complain about.

Echo drifts out behind her, cocking her head curiously. Keris nods.

“One more boat,” she agrees. “Let’s go.”

They surge forward, and the hull splits open.

The ship shudders and begins to sink, and Keris draws back, ears alert. The shouts and yells are painfully loud, but she forces the pain into the background, shadowing the ship in wide, swift, silent circles. Waiting. 

She hears footsteps. Not on the ship. On the water. The Dragonblooded have jumped down onto the surface of the sea and are keeping close together. The two men are only wearing loincloths, but they’re holding their daiklaives. A three-coloured bonfire of elemental essence whirls around them, filling the water with ice, steam and chopped-up petals.

Keris sighs in exasperation. Well, she didn’t think she would be so lucky as to kill them that easily. Time to see how alert they are, then. Keeping a wary distance and staying under the surface, she pulls a poisoned lead slingstone pellet out of her Domain and sends it towards the back of the sorcerer’s head with a graceful whip of her hair.

He’s keeping his guard up, but he’s not quite fast enough and the lead shot clips his temple after it skitters off his blade. It seems to just bounce off, but then he sags, groaning, and holding his head. The Fire Aspect takes a stance, a circle of fire rushing around the three of them protectively. Water hisses and surges. Likewise, the Wood aspect rests a hand on the sorcerer, and whispers that everything will be all right. He then joins the stance, burning petals joining the whirling storm, blade ready, even as the sorcerer starts to chant.

Keris frowns and sends two more lead shots whipping towards the sorcerer - these ones from directly beneath him; the lead pellets flying through the water as though it were air. Then she lets herself sink down deeper, pulling her suit of silver plate out from her Domain and letting it split open to engulf her.

((So, first attack. Dicepool, inc -2 penalty for flurry))  
((10 dice, then. Hmm. I’ll enhance both with 4 Adorjani ExD, since I’m going to have a few actions of regen. 14 dice total.))  
((Fire Warden Stance allows the swordswoman to apply her DV, and in addition provides a +(Enlightenment) external penalty / (half Enlightenment) DV bonus against ranged attacks, whichever is better when remaining static like that. This is increased by +1 for the assisting DB. She’s also doing Max spend. So DV 12, +5 external penalty - effectively DV 17))  
((Wow. Yeah, these aren’t getting through, then. 14 di-  
... 16 successes. Oh _COME ON_ , dice fairies, that’s just _taunting_ me! Seriously? _Seriously?!_ ))  
((: D))  
(( _Seven_ 10s! SEVEN! If you’re going give me a literally one-in-a-thousand roll, go the whole damn hog and let me succeed at it!))

Keris’ lead shot is fast, uncannily accurate, and is probably the single best shot she’s ever made with a sling.

And that fucking Fire Aspect flicks it out the air with her blade, catching it on her sword and flicking it into the water. That woman, Keris vows, is going to die a painful death. Soon. The next shot is picked up by the fire and simply blasted away. She doesn’t even need to move.

So ranged attacks won’t work. Fine then. Silver encloses Keris in a little bubble of seawater and moonsilver as she sinks deeper, touching the bottom. She’ll move in and handle this in person.

She can _hear_ the deafening roar of Air essence and taste its lightning crackle. It hurts. And the light from the burning animas of the DBs is suddenly on the move, rising up - and then it rockets away.

Keris blinks in outrage, surfacing in her armour. Did they just... they did! They ran away! The cowards!

Growling, she gets out her Cherub Shrine and sends Lintha Gajui Narooj a message, telling him where she is and what happened. If they’re heading back to Dragon’s Jaw, she wants to be well away from here by the time they get back with support.


	23. Chapter 23

The sun is down. The burning wreckage of some of the ships Keris has sunk still floats. A burning tarslick spreads from the wreckage of the largest one, ignited by the anima of the fire aspect. Keris gives it a dirty look, throws a rather dirtier look in the direction the Dragonblooded _ran away_ in, and gets to work. Slitting her wrists with a casual flick of Ascending Air, she sinks under the water and begins to pray to the Great Mother, dedicating the waters around her to Kimbery. Once the faint chill has settled into the water and the taste of the Demon Sea surrounds her, she purses her lips. Her first priority is the Mercy. She’ll start there.

As she dives, Keris receives an instructive lesson as to the issues with splitting a vessel down the hull. Namely, as it sinks, it spills its guts out all over the seabed. Sighing in annoyance, she circles the ship again, and shakes her head. Faster to just scavenge, for now. She can come back for the ship. She flashes over the seabed, locating the valuables scattered from the holds and throwing them into one of the deep City vaults without bothering to take the ship with them. Speed, she knows, is of the essence here. She does see in the gloom, however, that the other sunken ship is mostly intact - Echo was more considerate in how she punched holes in its hull, rather than splitting it wide open. Keris gets the distinct feeling that in her head, someone is smugly gesturing that this is how one does it properly.

Like a vulture who can swim and has octopus-like hair - so not very much like a vulture at all - Keris picks the wrecked ships clean. Once she’s stripped both wrecks of their valuables, she ascends again, avoiding the fire and making for the closest ship, still bobbing on its anchor. Ringing it with flowers that stay in place with a dab of blood and Sorcery, she starts a slow circuit of it in the water, chanting slowly. Bit by bit, the mists of her Domain descend, even as her anima flares to a brilliant red aura.

Keris is very much left alone as she works. If there are any other ships out here running at night, they keep well away from the mysterious red glow and maybe wake their priests up to pray for salvation from the sea demons - or maybe worse, the Lintha! She emerges from the fog cloud in what she’s starting to think of as the outer city - the suburbs just outside the scarlet line of Dulmea’s authority, where the city continues past the walls and into her Domain’s new Directions. In this case, the flooded city close to the Sea, in a deep lake ringed by half-submerged buildings.

She nods happily. It should be safe enough here. A stream begins to fall upwards from a nearby river even as she thinks it, and she watches in puzzlement as it soars higher and higher until it meets the red moon above her. Something flickers down the rising column, and her Sixth Soul enters the lake with a faint splash, jetting himself over to look at the new addition curiously.

Keris giggles. “It’s a ship,” she tells him, carefully helping him up onto the deck and extracting his thumb from his mouth. “You explore it while mama goes and gets another one, okay?”

Rathan gives her a wide chubby-faced smile. “Toy!” he declares chortling. “Mine!”

Keris ruffles his hair with a fond smile. “Alright, yours,” she agrees. “But thank your big sister for it! She helped me get it!”

“No!”

Sighing, and ignoring the extremely smug feeling coming from somewhere Ruinwards, Keris lets herself fade out of her Domain again, back into the water. She has more to do. This time she dives down - deep down, to the mostly-intact wreck. Again, she rings it with flowers, and again she begins to chant.

Her voice is a little hoarse now - four hours of chanting is a lot, and even if the physical exertion of circling the ship isn’t tiring, her mind feels sort of strained from the effort of bringing such a large structure through the Cloud Wall and into safe harbour. This one she can manage, she thinks, but hopefully the Lintha will get here in time to save her from having to do it twice more.

((... well. 7 successes on his 9 dice Travel roll. Apparently the Lintha _really_ want these ships.))

Four hours later, Keris surfaces from dumping the wreck in a damp dock - which is to say, an empty block in the flooded city that only had about three feet of water in it - to find more ships than had been there when she went down and a lot of agitated Lintha. It’s growing light by now, though the clouds make it hard to tell if the sun is up. It looks like it’s going to be stormy today.

Lintha Gajui Narooj leans over the side of his vessel. “Ahoy there, sister!” he calls out. “What a catch this is!”

Thankful that she’d kept the presence of mind not to drop her Lintha disguise, and aware that her soul is still refracting around her in arterial crimson and silver, Keris gives him a wet glare and pulls herself aboard.

“Thrice damn all Dragonblooded to the deepest of the Mother’s fathoms,” she swears, entirely genuine in her anger. “Cowards and honourless cheats, all of them.” She shakes some of the water from her hair. “They were using Sorcery to speed the ships. I had to sink half the convoy to stop them, and the stinking rats fled rather than face me.”

“Ah ha! Yes! The Dragonblooded are but mongrel cowards compared to the purity of the Lintha,” he says blithely. “They would rather sink their own vessels than let them fall in our hands, and so they make raiding them too dear for all but the very best.”

Blowing her fringe out of her face, Keris shrugs. “Well, two ships and a slap to the face of the dragons is still a fine victory for the Lintha,” she says philosophically. “I’m only sorry their tricks stopped you helping me take more. How fare you, brother?”

“The sun is rising, we have a good wind and the Great Mother herself has sent you to deliver these vessels into my hands! How could this not be the greatest of days!” he proclaims cheerfully.

Keris blinks. The sun is rising?

She checks. Huh. The sun is rising. How about that?

“The Lintha grow stronger and our enemies cower to face us,” she answers formally with a grin. “No doubt the Red Moon will be pleased to see her harbour filled with the ships of her foes.”

“Indeed, indeed!” Lintha are already swarming down the side of their vessels, walking on water using strange wide shoes made of wood, before using their hooked weapons to clamber up the sides of the two empty ships.

“Speaking of which,” Keris adds, “it was with her blessing that I brought down the convoy. Honour her with a sacrifice tonight, brother - and be away from here soon, before the Dragonblooded return with numbers to make up for their cowardice.”

It’s only at this point that Keris realises she could probably have sacrificed the crews to Ululaya. Drat. Well, not all is lost. She can do that to the next ship she hits - oh, and maybe give Sasi some adorable jewellery to pass on as a gift! Spirits like that sort of thing, right?

“I will, I will,” he says floridly. “Bless you, sister!”

She gives him a nod of respect, and lets herself fall back in a perfect dive to enter the water with barely a ripple. If the Lintha will be on their way soon, she can probably take the wreck of the Mercy - it’s shattered, but she can probably have someone back in Malfeas break down that reinforced hull and make something useful out of it.

Once the two shattered halves of the hull rest safely on parallel streets of a flooded neighbourhood, she rests on the seabed for a few minutes of exhaustion as the burning red aura around her begins to die away, before turning and heading back towards An Teng along the ocean floor.

((yaaaaaaay Cog + Travel))  
((le sigh. 2+0+2+4 MSM autosux=4... uh, 5+4=9 sux. Wow. Keris, do you just navigate better when tired and half-drunk on soul-loopiness or something?))  
((I didn’t expect you to actually manage to find it))

Along the way, Keris suddenly feels a tug from the ocean. It... it’s incredibly faint, but she thinks it wants her to follow it. Sleepy but curious, she alters course obediently to see what it is the Sea wants her to see.

... she also spends a slightly embarrassing amount of time giggling at her punnery.

Going deeper, she follows the elusive current. Down in the depths where there’s no light, she feels it snag her and stop her going any deeper. Her caste mark is still burning, bringing green light into the depths, but it’s barely able to distinguish anything. Instead, she closes her eyes and listens to the movement of water around her, building a mental map and trying to work out what the ocean drew her here for.

The sound of the swirling water shocks Keris. There are great pillars protruding from the bottom of the water, and they sound like jadesteel. She can hear them, too, lying flat on the ground. She went... um, quite a way out, distracted by the current, and she’s currently under two hundred yards of water and... and there are pillars here, protruding from the ocean floor. And it sounds like the water goes down much, much deeper around the pillars. It’s like... some kind of flooded mineshaft, under hundreds of yards of water

Another one? Why... what... Keris struggles to understand, clarity returning to her thoughts like icy water. This is like the Catalyst, in structure. But what’s it doing so far out here, at the bottom of the sea?

... well, there’s one easy way to find out.

Caste mark still burning Ligier-green on her forehead, Keris kicks herself until she’s right over the gaping mouth of the void in the seabed, summons up her courage and dives.

This doesn’t seem to be the same, she eventually thinks as she descends. This is three jadesteel pillars sunk deep into the rock, around a central bore hole. She didn’t see pillars around the Catalyst. Right? Not that she _saw_ , anyway. It’s a lot of jadesteel, too, she thinks as she tries to estimate how deep the hole is, and how long the pillars are. She thinks, from what she can hear of the water movements, the pillars were once tall enough to reach the surface. They’re slender, perhaps only as wide as her waist, but that’s still a... a lot of jadesteel. And something broke them.

She can hear something very strange down perhaps another two hundred yards down, at the bottom of the borehole. She isn’t sure what it is is. It sounds like... it sounds like crystal, but it’s _singing_. She thinks it’s singing. The echoes reverberate around so much she doesn’t know.

She heads down further, closer, bringing her Lance out just in case it’s unfriendly.

It’s not singing, she realises as she gets deeper. The crystal is screaming. It hurts. But it’s sound. Maybe Keris can get its attention. She stops her descent before the noise gets too painful, kicking every so often to keep her place, and listens hard. The pitch is... more or less constant. Predictable, at least. Carefully, Keris shifts her Lance to her hair and draws a hand through the water. A high chord rings out... but no, that’s not right. She shifts higher, slightly flatter...

... ah. There it is. Her other hand comes up automatically, continuing the pull, harmonising with the scream to shift the sound from agonised screaming to a sweeter - if still high-pitched - two-part chord. She keeps it going, pulling harder on the strands of Time, amplifying the sound to make it carry downward.

Her Lance stays alert as she waits for a reaction.

There’s light down at the bottom of the hole. It’s shining up through the silt and sediment. The screaming crystal underneath pierces the light with a colourless, flickering wavering illumination.  Keris listens to the screaming and the notes her chord is pulling from the thing, trying to gauge what it is and how powerful it is.

The wave of sound hits Keris like a punch to the face. The sheer force of Pyrian essence washes over her. It hurts!

((Pyrian essence, Enlightenment 10+))  
((Holy fuck. Is. Is this part of what I think it’s part of? Also, how big is it?))  
((Keris isn’t how big it is, but the light is filling the bottom of the shaft. They didn’t unearth it fully, apparently.))

The _power_ of it! It stuns her, and she reels, spiralling over in the water, her music lost to the water. This much power, that _force_... it’s only something she’s felt once before. But how could part of an All-Maker be here, deep under the ocean off the coast of An Teng? It makes no sense...

... unless, she realises with a cold chill.

Unless this really is part of an All-Maker. A cast-off part of the Whispering Pyre, a fragment of her divine perfection, fractured - as the histories of Malfeas tell - in her fury at the gods’ betrayal. A fury so devastating it scourged even the memory of those it fell on from the annals of history.

“The Three Spheres Cataclysm,” Keris mouths, her eyes very wide. Despite her comfort in the water, it feels like her spine has been replaced with ice and her lungs and throat with lead as she instinctively shoots back up the shaft, terrified. Even the _thought_ of trying to put that... that _thing_ inside her Domain is enough to have her exit the mouth of the shaft at speeds she hadn’t previously thought herself capable of.

She proceeds to spend the next several minutes hiding behind a jade-steel pillar, suddenly a great deal less confident about the security it offers.

((Aww, come on. It’d be a great Mentor for Pyrian Charms.))  
((If you learned a Pyrion Pantheon Charm, you could have the Pantheon soul spring from it.))  
((... yeah okay I think this calls for a Temperance roll. 2 dice. 1 success. Yeah... that’s not enough for Keris to stay near it. It’s _barely_ enough to remember to mark where it is.))

Once her heart rate has settled from “terrified hummingbird after a dose of panikeszik chalcanth” to merely “very, very fast and scared”, Keris regains enough presence of mind to surface and see roughly where she is, in case she has to find this place again. Which she probably will, if she tells Sasi about it.

Not something she is looking forward to. Sasi is going to owe her _such a bribe_ for this. Keris shoots up like a fireworm and surfaces, back into the sweltering heat of the midday sun. She can’t see the coast anymore. In fact, she can’t see anything but empty sea.

Well.

Damn.

Sighing, she judges the angle of the sun and the vague tip of the Imperial Mountain, far off in the distance and makes an educated guess as to which way east is. She can at least identify roughly the right bit of coastline to start out from when Sasi makes her come back here.  Looking around, she strikes some luck. There’s a coral atoll growing off the top of one of the ruined pillars, and that’s visible from the surface.  She marks it in her memory, and heads on back to An Teng. The screaming stays with her, long after it’s passed out of even her supernal hearing range and she can no longer pick it up. It rings in her memory; that terrible screech - like the awful light in the Tomb of Blades - and she imagines the sound rising in volume, flooding out of the pit, echoing through the bottom of the ocean and carrying fish and whales and ships and isles and continents away into nothingness, all as the horrible, horrible scream continues, never stopping, never ceasing, never slowing even for a second...

Such is Keris’s state when she arrives in the City of the Steel Lotus that evening that she barely remembers to drop the shadow-guise she’s wearing before entering Sasi’s bedroom. Once inside, she quite calmly dismisses her Amulet, sucks her hair clean and dry, marches over to Sasi and grabs her around the waist to cuddle wordlessly until she feels better.

This takes quite a long while.

((Oh dear, is Keris Yozi-sick again?))  
((... not as bad as the first time, but yes, a bit. And also she’s very sensitive to sound, and the echoed hateful suicide-scream of a Primordial destroying her perfect symmetry and flensing things out of reality is, uh... yeah.))

“What is it? Did things go wrong? Did you get hurt by the Dragonblooded?” Sasi asks.

“... have you ever seen a shattered crystal blade?” Keris asks faintly, still trembling a bit. “Have you ever used one?”

Sasi frowns. “I know Liyin Zheng uses one,” she says. “A Slayer.”

“Can we never go near him ever?” Keris asks as politely as she can. “At all. Ever.”

Sasi stares flatly. “She,” she corrects.

“It was _screaming_ ,” Keris continues, not really hearing her. “It was _screaming_ and _screaming_ and it was so strong I couldn’t hear anything else and it _hated_ so much, it was _furious_ , so angry that anything it was angry at wouldn’t _exist_ anymore, and it k-kept screaming a-and I c-couldn’t...”

She has to break off, sucking in air and tightening her grip on Sasi, pressing her face into the older woman’s chest until she stops trembling and the wetness around her eyes recedes.

“Anyo-one who uses one of those... _things_ ,” she manages, after a pause to collect herself, “must be... I dunno. Crazy. Crazier than Deveh. Crazier than the Red Moon. Nothing could live around that s-sound and not go mad from terror.”

“A what?” Sasi blinks. “What happened? What did you find? What happened with the ships?”

Keris shakes her head. “The ships were... fine, mostly,” she says, gratefully latching onto the change of subject. “The plan went a bit wrong ‘cause they were going too fast and the Lintha weren’t in place in time, so I had to do it myself, but aside from the three Dragonblooded I still killed everyone and got the ships. Had to sink two, but I still got them.”

She swallows. “It was after. On the way back. The ocean guided me to something...” She laughs, quick and sick and half-hysterical. “It must want it out of it. I would. It’s at the bottom of this... this pit, this mineshaft, like the Catalyst. Three big jadesteel towers around it. And at the bottom... I thought it was singing at first, b-but then I got closer and I... I heard the screaming.” Her hair comes around to hug herself as she huddles inwards at the memory. “And then I couldn’t _stop_ hearing it. Even when I swam away.”

“Three jade steel towers?” Sasi asks. “What?”

Keris takes a deep breath, feeling a flash of resentment for making Sasi go over it _again_. “On the seabed. Off the coast. There’s a deep pit, about three yards across. Three big jadesteel pillars around it - I think they must have reached the surface once. Maybe they’re what they used to drill the hole. The tops are broken now. The hole goes down...” she shakes her head. “Dunno. Long way. And at the...”

She swallows again, and takes another deep breath, shuddering as the sense-memory of the scream tingles the back of her head again. “At the bottom. There’s a chunk of Shattered Crystal. Still half-buried. At least as wide across as the hole, I think. _Screaming_.”

Sasi purses her lips. “This would probably be faster if you’d let me look through your mind and see what you saw,” she suggests. The fact that Keris is agrees with barely a murmur of discontent says a great deal about how shaken she is, and makes Sasi’s lips purse further.

“Oh dear,” Sasi says. “I expected for you to refuse that. Well.” She puts her hands on either side of Keris’s head, leans in and kisses her. “Now, here goes.”

The pain spikes for Keris. She remembers the screaming. She remembers the light. She remembers the light.

“It is illegal to attempt to influence me in this way,” Sasi mutters almost to herself. “I see.”

Keris doesn’t register this, because Keris is curled in a ball on her lap whimpering again.

Sasi steeples her fingers together, lost in thought. “Interesting. That looks like... hmm, yes, some kind of Shogunate - or even older! - mining drill! Can you believe what the people of ancient times had, Keris? Great drills which would burrow into the very depths of Creation! Magical workings which would prevent mines from flooding! And... I wonder if they abandoned this place when they struck a very fragment of the Principle of Hierarchy herself.”

She pauses.

“... Deveh cannot know,” she says firmly. “Also, your senses are _incredibly_ acute. You hear like I touch.”

((Heh. Except Sasi touches like that when she wishes to, whereas Keris hears and tastes like that _all the time_.))  
((Keris tastes like that when she wants to. She just forgets to de-commit the motes.))  
((Actually I’m not sure Keris has realised she can turn the taste off.))

Red tresses shift. “‘veh?” Keris mumbles. “Why n’?”

There is a very brief pause.

“... oh,” she adds, as light dawns. “Yeah. N’know.”

Contribution made, Keris burrows her head back into Sasi’s chest and closes her eyes, trying to calm her racing heart and reassure herself that no, there isn’t an awful sound ringing out from deep beneath the ocean to swallow the world and utterly unmake it.

Sasi seems to come down from her knowledge based-high, and realise what a state Keris in. “Come on,” she says, gently. “You’re filthy and you have sediment in your hair. You need a bath. Come with me. And you can tell me about all the things you no doubt stole from the Dragonblooded, their cargo, and those silly cannibal pirates you gave the ships too.”

Keris follows, and feels rather better after some time spent underwater in the bath with Sasi’s invisible hands gently washing her hair. She feels rather better still after pulling some of the silver and gems out of her vault, and boasting to Sasi about how she stole three of the five ships and left the Lintha with only two. Admittedly, two of hers aren’t in any condition to sail, but still.

Sasi stares at her. “Keris,” she asks flatly. “When did you learn to hide entire ships in your soul? _How?_ ”

Keris gives her a reproving look. “I already told you that, Sasi,” she admonishes. “When I told you I stole a summer house for us to use in the valley, remember? It’s all marble and cool.” She pauses. “... and probably a bit overgrown now, because I told Haneyl to decorate it for you, but probably still nice and cool.”

“But... a structure is hooked into the geomancy and you said you had to alter the local geomancy with All-Creator power before you could do it! Vessels aren’t.”

Keris shakes her head, on firmer ground now. “It’s not that the thing I’m moving needs to be hooked into the altered geomancy, it just needs to be in a place that’s altered enough to give me a way in. It’s like...” She tilts her head. “There needs to be a sympathy between where it’s coming from and where it’s going, for me to get it through the Cloud Wall. The altered geomancy is based on the same stuff my Domain is built on, so it works sort of like a door that I can move things through. Still takes ages, but it works.”

Sasi is staring at her. Keris smiles proudly. “There were some books and scrolls in the summer house,” she adds. “They were really interesting!”

“Well, it’s always nice to see you reading more,” Sasi says blandly.

“I tried explaining some of it to Dulmea but she didn’t really understand. And Haneyl and Rathan weren’t really listening to the words, I don’t think. Or Echo.” Keris sighs. “Still, it- oh! Idea! Sasi, can I give you a massage?”

Sasi looks at her deeply, and narrows her eyes. “Will it involve the experimental use of titanic power which you have not used on me before?” she asks with consummate grace, poise, and totally not suspicion.

“Absolutely not!” Keris protests. “It’s not at all experimental. I’ve used it on loads of other people, and they’re all fine.”

She lifts a hand and lets it split into roots and then merge back into fingers. “It’s from Haneyl. It lets me... do things with flesh, and wood, and plants... anything alive, really. A _lot_ of things. I healed the Wyld-lumps in a man’s lungs with them. Grew a woman’s feet back, too. They think I’m a flower-goddess who serves the Sower of Seeds, so they didn’t even question it. It makes me really, really good at fine detail stuff - like your invisible hands; that precise. I bet I can give even better massages than before with it.”

She pauses. “And... it’s from Haneyl,” she adds. “I think if I give you a massage like this, it’ll let her get an idea of what you’re like. I can’t externalise her the way I can Echo.”

“... very well. I trust you. You may do it if you wish,” Sasi says, after some thought.

Keris bounces happily, calling mentally for Haneyl’s attention. ‘This is your other mama,’ she tells the little girl’s strange fiery-woody-hungry presence in her head. ‘I’m going to use the gifts you were born from to make her feel good - see if you can sense her when I do, okay?’

With the curious attention of her Seventh Soul behind her fingers, she turns her full attention to giving Sasi the best massage she can possibly manage; roots sinking into pale skin and teasing tension out of muscles from the inside, coaxing away bad humours and tickling pleasure-points.

Despite the fact she’s enjoying it, she doesn’t seem to be entirely comfortable with it. Keris can barely hear it in the way she inhales whenever she pokes a root into her.

As a result, she finishes a little sooner than she might otherwise have done, once she’s sure that Haneyl has a good idea of what her other mama is like. Cuddling into Sasi’s side in the still-warm water, she sighs quietly.

“... are we going to do anything about the... thing, out in the ocean?” she asks quietly. “Without telling Deveh it’s there?”

“I’ll need to think about this,” Sasi says carefully. “And what we can do with them.”

“Put them a very, very long way from anywhere?” Keris asks hopefully. “And never go near them again?”

“There is power in them,” Sasi says softly. “I will consider.”

Keris isn’t entirely happy about that, but nods nonetheless, though she makes a mental note to raise the price of leading Sasi to the thing by several notches if she’s going to use it anywhere near Keris.

“Okay,” she sighs, snuggling closer to Sasi and under the water’s surface. “I’m going to sleep now,” emerges from underwater in Old Realm. “Tired. Long day.”

“Yes,” Sasi agrees.

She has her scheming face on.

Keris’s dreams aren’t pleasant. At first they’re nice - she drifts around her Domain for a while, admiring her new boats and securing the gems and silver in several different vaults.

Then the screaming starts to come back. It’s faint at first. She almost thinks it’s a trick of her hearing.

But it gets louder. And louder. The Domain around her starts to fray, as she falls out of meditation and into a nightmare. She sees the new lands around her Domain dry up and turn to crystal even as the Cloud Wall swallows them like she’d never pushed it back. She sees her city begin to disintegrate, calcifying into greyish crystal and crumbling to nothing.

She sees Haneyl and Rathan crying and screaming as the shriek blots out their voices, their figures, their existence. She sees Echo try to flee, only to fall apart under the unstoppable assault of the sound.

She sees Dulmea panicking, as terrified as she was after Keris ran with the Silent Wind, before she’s gone.

And then Keris is alone. She’s alone in an empty space and there’s nothing and noone there and there never was and it’s just her and the screaming and it won’t stop and she can feel it start to unmake _her_...

Keris wrenches awake with a scream of her own, caught in her throat in petrified silence. At first she’s paralysed with terror, and then movement returns and she jackknifes up so fast that she breaks the coat of ice that’s formed across the surface of the bath from her dreaming distress.

... actually, ‘coat’ is understating it. Some of the shattered chunks from near the edges are almost an inch thick.

“Dulmea?” she whispers hoarsely, hugging herself. “Echo? Rathan? Haneyl? Tell me you’re all there.”

“What happened, child?” Dulmea asks, her voice as calm and proper as usual.

“Nightmare,” answers Keris, shivering. Dulmea’s music is a calming presence, though. She hadn’t realised how used to it she’d become until it had stopped and there’d only been silence in her head. “The... the screaming. Unmade everything. The Domain, the city, all of you. Everything but me.” The memories flash through her mind even as she says it, giving Dulmea a glimpse of the dream.

Dulmea is silent, and there’s even a hitch in her song, a catch in it. “I have heard,” she says carefully, “that those who come too close to the Principle of Hierarchy become part of her. If that is true, then something which was once part of her might be even more dangerous than you feared before, child.”

Keris shivers. “It’s fading, I think,” she says. “When I left, I was hearing it non-stop, even swimming away as fast as I could. By the time I got back to the City, it was just snatches. And that... just then, that was when I was asleep and had my guard down.”

Her stomach turns over and it’s an effort to keep her last meal down. “I think we’re safe,” she continues, as much to convince herself as because she actually believes it. “This time. But... yeah. Staying away from that in future - far, far away - sounds good.”

A thought occurs to her, and her stomach does another nauseous flip. “I bet that’s what happens to mortals,” she realises. “They hear it and they don’t stop or get over it, it just... keeps going until there’s nothing left of them. Only the song. Or the scream.”

“I am pleased you are realising the danger of going too close to the All-Makers,” Dulmea says, with a hint of acid, and she pauses. “Echo also says that it’s too loud.”

The sheer Echoness of the sentiment startles some laughter from Keris. “Yeah. I bet. But... I don’t think I’m going to sleep again for a while,” she decides. “I’ll pray to the Great Mother instead. If nothing else it’ll keep me more alert, and... maybe She’ll notice and keep it from coming back.”


	24. Chapter 24

Ill and feverish, Keris wonders why she always goes and pokes her nose into things. She must be ill to be having these kinds of thoughts. What she needs, she decides, is some downtime, a week or so spent just on her-stuff. A small corner of her brain tactfully points out that technically all of her work with the Catalyst and the misbegotten and possibly even the Red Mountain family count as such, but she ignores it with the ease of long practice.

Silversmithing, she remembers. Yes, she was going to look into that, wasn’t she? And that might... yes, making pretty things and reminding herself of the pretty silver she now owns might take her mind off the... the sound.

“Sasi?” she asks, once the other woman has woken up sufficiently. “How would I get a master silversmith to teach me? I want to see if I can learn how they make the jewellery they wear so much of.”

Sasi taps her lips. “Hmm,” she says, considering the problem. “Like so much of An Teng, it’s usually a family trade. Now, of course, especially here in the Shore Lands that’s just an ideal and in practice they will take on apprentices and the like, but the best ones are up in the High Lands where it’s very much a family trade.” Sasi scowls. “That’s standing in the way of a refinement of the craft,” she adds. “Very inefficient. I wonder how long it’ll last in the face of Deveh.”

She sits up in bed, hugging her knees. “Of course,” she says, considering things, “you could always go take over one of the small families linked to the silversmithing trade here in the Shore Lands.”

“They’re not the real masters,” Keris sighs. She wrinkles her nose. “Then again, I’m a Princess of the Green Sun. Once I’ve learned up to a professional level I can probably grow further than them on my own.” She mulls it over for a moment. “I’m pretty good already, too... if I showed them some of my work I could probably get them interested enough to teach me.”

She nods. “Yeah, I’ll do that. Can I borrow your cellar tonight to make something to impress them? Oh, and I’ll need tools. Tools, tools...”

She grins. “Just popping out! Bye!”

Sadly, despite Keris’s normally exceptional hearing, she suffers a brief but tragic bout of spontaneous deafness as she hops out of the window and heads out into the city, and thus misses whatever it was that Sasi was saying in a rather sharp tone of voice. Somewhere, in a city like Steel Lotus, there will be a place that sells tools for working soft metal. High-quality ones. Keris sets out to find them.

Touring the city by its streets rather than its rooftops or waterways is almost unfamiliar, but Keris mingles through the throngs, avoiding the louder areas and occasionally plugging her ears against the bustle of the crowd. The Shore Lands are more accepting of non-Tengese, which is a nice change, and she asks in shops here and there, charming people and playing the discerning artisan and the harassed servant by turns to find tools of an appropriate quality.

Fortunately for Keris, the sound of one of those workshops where they work silver is fairly characteristic, and with only a bit of distraction where she decided to have fried squid with mango chutney and bread for breakfast she finds one. She can probably ask here.

... or provision her tools here, wink wink nudge nudge a not-voice in her head wildly gestures.

Yes. Echo does make a point.

‘Obviously,’ she fires back, smug to have - for once - thought of something before Echo. ‘It’s not like I was planning to pay for them. I just wanted to be sure I got _good_ ones.’

Slipping into the workshop, she melds against a wall for a while, scoping out the tools on offer. The best ones, she reasons, will probably be the ones being used by the best smiths. Who will probably be the older, more experienced smiths, or the ones making the prettiest pieces, or both.

Operating on this sound logic, she waits for them to break for food, and makes off with a set of pliers, files, a small hammer and saw, a melting pot and a variety of other bits and pieces that she vaguely recognises from her memories of her father’s work, albeit much smaller and more delicate. With a whisper and a slashing motion, she severs the bonds of ownership between them and the smith, and vanishes back into the city.

((... should I even bother rolling?))  
((WHO KNOWS IF YOU CAN BEAT 1 SUCCESS?))  
((Actually, if they count as “obviously displayed valuables”, Light-Fingered Larcenist reduces the Difficulty by 1. : 3  
Reaction+Subterfuge=5+5+3 Style+2 Coadj+2 stunt=17. 10 sux lawl.))

Keris skips in and skips out again, also filling her pockets with silver, some half-done working pieces, and also someone’s lunch. She sets up the tools in the jade-lined bank vault of her Domain, and heads back to Sasi’s to start work, her mind buzzing with ideas. What to make? Hmm. Something impressive. Not rings. Bracers or a necklace, perhaps? Something beautiful and Tengese, that will wow whoever she goes to into fostering her obvious talent.

Ah! Of course! A tiara. Yes, she can draw a bit of inspiration from the Seven Lotus Crown she’s heard of... not actual lotuses, that might offend someone, but... lilies, maybe. And carnations! It can match her flower dress! Yes, this will work well.

Starting is fairly straightforward, once she’s ensconced in Sasi’s cellar. There are a few ways she could do this, but the easiest she can think of is carving - she’ll lose a lot of silver as scraps and dust, but she can just catch it and melt it back down into a bar. A few quick measurements later, she has an improvised sand mould.

She congratulates herself for thinking ahead enough to take the little furnace from the workshop. It’s not very big, but when packed full of charcoal it’s enough to melt one of her stolen silver bars in a ceramic pot, which she carefully pours out into the mould.

After that, it’s just a matter of carving. She uses Ascending Air for the rough work, enjoying the way the terne easily slices through the metal - she _needs_ to get herself some jadesteel tools - and downgrades her design slightly in the interest of time constraints. By the end of the day, she has the circle of the tiara smoothed out, and the seven flower-lumps at about the right size and in about the right place.

The next couple of days are an educational adventure. Keris confirms, for example, that her root-hair is not able to reshape things that have never been alive, such as silver, and that trying to do so tastes horrible. She also discovers that using tiny chittering tooth-lined hairs to eat away bits of silver while she’s doing detailed work _is_ possible, and even tastes nice, but will give her toothache in her hair; an experience she is determined not to repeat.

On the more positive side, actually carving the damn flowers progresses a lot faster once she uses a couple of the ones from her Domain as models. Carving and gnawing the roughed-out lumps into delicate petals is tricky, but it’s worth it for what it’ll get her when she shows it to the master silversmiths once it’s finished and they fall over each other to teach her.

She finishes the piece by polishing it to a shine, and wears it up to show Sasi. It’s not beyond the limits of mortal craft, but it’s certainly sufficient - coming from someone who’s never been taught silversmithing in her life - to show considerable potential and have journeymen and even masters drooling over the prospect of claiming her as a student.

“Very nice,” Sasi observes. “Quite a good little piece. Although I do notice you have silver in your hair,” she adds, Keris feeling invisible hands picking against her scalp.

“I ate some while I was carving it,” Keris explains. “Silver is tasty! But it gave me toothache.” She pauses. “Hairache? Hairtoothache? Somethingache.”

The next day, she seeks out - on Sasi’s advice, rather than trusting her own ability to find them - one of the better silversmithing workshops in the city, braiding her hair up tightly and taking her tiara along in a little bag.

((What does she look like? What’s her story?))  
((Well... honestly, in this case? She can probably go with her public face, as the mistress/companion of Lady Sareh, who is expressing an interest in learning jewellery-making. Kept woman of a local rich trader looking for a hobby who, uh, turns out to be a natural prodigy at silversmithing.))  
((And what Charms does she activate before going in?))  
((Martyr’s Open Endearment and Carmine Mantled Emissary. Per+Pol roll; 3+1+4 Kimmy ExD {beauty, charm, poise}=8. 4 sux.))  
((So they’re not likely to think negatively of me, and won’t want to express it by socially attacking me even if they do.))

The workshop is owned by the Green Snake family - from what Sasi says, they’re a very low-ranking noble family, with a single baroncy to their name. As a result, they’re heavily invested in the trade with the Realm and can basically be considered to in practice be a merchant family and Realm client.

As a result, they have several workshops where they take on apprentices and the family itself doesn’t do much smithing, apart from Kolayani Green Snake, the younger brother of the current family head who is a master and runs this workshop for his sister.

And because of this, they do seem a little surprised and perhaps not entirely welcoming of the idea some kept woman wants to do this as a hobby.  Keris flatters, charms and flirts a little, and resorts to pulling out her tiara a little earlier than she’d initially planned, asking with a vulnerable expression whether she has any potential for the art, or whether she would be better suited going elsewhere to learn.

The person who’s inspecting her work and talking to her calls for Kolayani Green Snake, who carefully inspects it, lifts it up, and views it from several angles. “Hmm,” he says very carefully. “Well, we will see how things are provisionally. The question of fees and materials...”

He’s rather more excited than he lets on, Keris suspects. Or maybe worked up. He’s suspicious, and he’s not excited enough to waive the fees - and he may try to see how much he can get out of Sasi.

“Well, I can cover the materials, if I only work on small pieces,” Keris offers. “I have some funds of my own that I can use for that so as not to impose on your generosity.”

“Then we shall begin your test period,” he says. “We’ll just need to get the paperwork in order...”

Keris, warned by her caution, managed to notice some of the harsher clauses and argue them down, leaving her with a contract much more to her liking - and with rather lower fees. It helps when she can make insultingly low offers and he won’t take offence, she thinks to the sound of Rathan’s giggles.  She agrees a time to start the next morning, and thanks him happily as she leaves, skipping back to Sasi with a copy of the contract and feeling very pleased with herself.

“So, do you have them eating out of your palm yet?” Sasi asks idly.

“They were more eager to have me than they wanted to let on,” Keris tells her. “I figure it could be worth making them mine with Haneyl, just to be sure they’ll be nice to me. Oh, and the workshop! Remind me to have some proper tools made when we go back to Malfeas - really good ones. And... hmm. Actually, speaking of going back, perhaps I should make a gift for the Shashalme. They take tokens of adoration as repayment for their generosity.” She mulls it over briefly. “I have a few ideas, yeah,” she nods. “I’ll start planning once I know what I’m doing with the silver.”

Sasi sighs. “Oh, Keris,” she says. “Sometimes I feel you’re the most honest thief around. You go in and apply as a student, rather than just dominate the owning family and take whatever teacher you felt like.”

Keris shrugs. “I can charm people really well, but I’m still not good at politics and economics unless I’m breaking them,” she points out. “That said, if there’s anything else you want me to do in the High Lands, I wouldn’t mind taking care of it while I run an errand up there and poke through some of the traditional masters’ workshops.”

“Oh.” Sasi thinks. “Well, darling,” she says idly, “if you are going to be up there anywhere, there’s a mine I would quite like to see destroyed and everyone within slaughtered. And while you’re there, you might even think about taking the opal dust they have there on-site.” Sasi stretches. “The mine, according to my reports, is nearly worthless - the dust isn’t much - but someone taking all the dust and killing everyone there will get certain families to sink a lot of income into protecting what they found and re-opening the mine.”

Keris’s eyes sparkle. “I’ll do it if you use your...” she waves her hands, “... mind hand thingies to turn the dust into opals I can use,” she replies instantly. “Oh, and actually, I promised Haneyl a little while ago that I’d get her some emeralds. If I found some lesser gems in the market that were about right, could you turn them nice and emeraldy?”

With more formal training, Keris progresses quickly. Despite her previous beliefs, eating away at the metal with your teeth hair is not a core part of silversmithing. Instead, there’s a lot of working in wire and some casting. She spends several days learning how to work in wax, so she can create models of what she plans to cast and then create a mould from the wax in clay, and finally cast the silver in the mould. She makes tiny little chains and she makes candlesticks and she makes drinking vessels.

She is unfairly good and she can hear the muttering of the other apprentices - and as the first week passes, some of the journeymen. But of course they can’t hold it against her. She has Rathan on her side.

She takes a few days off, as Crowning Fire starts to roll towards Falling Fire and she begins running out of things to learn, and heads off up to the High Lands on a trip. With the half-formed plans for her gift to the Shashalme already taking form, she gathers soil from the Shore Lands, the Middle Lands and the High Lands as she goes, storing it very, very carefully in sealed ceramic pots in her Domain.

This time, Keris carefully avoids Deveh’s lands, and pays what people tell her are the greatest silversmith masters’ workshops a visit, taking a very nice set of beautiful tools for her own use and examining their works-in-progress to see if she can reverse-engineer some of their techniques.  She manages to find a wider selection of fine quality tools which she profoundly filters, and the prize is an engraving tool tipped with black jade, which flows incredibly fluidly when used for decorative carvings, almost as if it was a brush passing through water.

Then she pays a visit to the mine.

((So. The main thing is that she needs to be sneaky about it, and avoid offending the mine gods while destroying the place. The civilians are basically incidental. So it’s a lower of Physique + Occult or Combat Skill or Subterfuge, and she needs 6 successes to get away cleanly - this involves god-murder of the mine, but the mine gods aren’t all that strong and they’re young))

The sun is setting the first time she sees the open-shaft mine. Up here, it’s much cooler than it was done in the valleys, and there’s still snow on the high mountains, up above the bamboo line. To the north, towards the Imperial Mountain she can see a smoking mountain - perhaps a fire mountain a hundred miles away or more.

Keris congratulates herself on her timing. The darkness will work to her advantage here. Blending into her surroundings in a way that would make chameleons green with envy, she slips into the mine, moving in short bursts of motion that stop abruptly whenever there’s anyone nearby. An inhumanly astute observer would see that her eyes are closed. The miners aren’t the ones she’s worried about. The gods are. She keeps her ears open for them, listening to the rumble of their Essence and judging them as she moves deeper underground.

((5+4+2 stunt+2 Amuletstealth+9 Adorjani ExD=22. 6... _6_ successes? _Six?_ Wtf? Argh! So close to disaster!))

When she moves, having stolen all the opal dust there is to offer, it’s from the top down; her anima filling the tunnels with light. As fast as she’s moving, the miners die without ever realising what the source of the red radiance is. The gods; young and inexperienced, are left with terrible wounds that bleed red gusts that they cannot staunch or stop. By the time Keris reaches the bottom of the mine, everything else in it is dead.

Then she starts back up. Every mine support is slashed through. Every body is inhaled. Green fire eats away at beams and pillars, Echo scores deep gashes in the walls and ceilings. Keris can hear the rumbling sounds of collapsing stone begin behind her, but she’s faster than the wave of destruction, and shoots out of the shaft just in time for her aura to highlight the massive cloud of dust that fountains up out of it as the last of the tunnels and shaft fall in. The column of smoke rises into the night sky; lit by an eerie crimson radiance from within.

If Keris was the sort to dramatically pose in front of a collapsing mine, her pose would have been ruined when she got absolutely covered in dust from the shaft.  She passes through Prosperous Garden on the way back to the Shore Lands, picking up a pretty little circlet inset with seven amethysts that will do nicely for Haneyl’s promised present. The little girl has been getting a bit stroppy about it not turning up promptly, though being allowed to play with Keris’s silversmithing pieces has mollified her somewhat. Despite that, Keris still ends up putting it off for another night as Sasi welcomes her back home after her week-long absence.

“Is the deed done?” Sasi asks, with self-mocking melodrama. She seems in a better mood and not at all nervous.

“It is indeed, fair lady,” Keris says with a sweeping bow, picking up on the lightness in the air. “And I’m still finding dust in uncomfortable places because of it, so I hope you’re happy. Though...” She produces her pretty engraving tool and spins it around her fingers a couple of times before putting it away again, “I can’t say I didn’t come out ahead, overall.”

“Well, I’m glad you had fun,” Sasi says warmly. “I’ve missed you.” She rests her hand on her abdomen. “And the little one has decided she wants to kick my stomach to death. Have you ever tried to lead a cult when the child inside you has decided that she has no sense of the dramatic?”

Keris suddenly and mysteriously goes poker-faced. It is a fairly good poker-face, by most people’s standards. It is not, however, good enough for Sasi not to notice the giggling fit hiding behind it.

“I can’t say I have,” Keris admits in an admirably level voice. “Maybe she wants to try leading the cult herself?”

Sasi pouts. “Then she can hurry up and get out of here,” she grouches. “She’s welcome to it if she’ll take the weight off my spine and stop kicking me.”

“Awww,” Keris coos in sympathy, not quite managing to hide her grin. “Maybe she’ll calm down if I play her some music? And give you a footrub.” She grins. “And then you can reward me for getting all dusty destroying that mine, and,” she sighs dramatically, “having to kill and inhale some more gods. Oh, it was terrifying, Sasi. Some of them were as powerful as a First Circle citizen!”

“My goodness. Such heroism,” Sasi says in all apparent earnesty.

Keris nods sadly, and starts to play.


	25. Chapter 25

It is late in Crowning Fire. Where does the time fly, Keris wonders to herself as she idly skips over the rooftops of Dragon’s Teeth, breaking into houses for entertainment and stealing valuables.

Indeed, it’s now been... almost a full season since she arrived in An Teng. She’s got used to the sight and sound of Dragon Mouth Bay and the golden skin and chatter of regional Firetongue. And the spicy food, sort of. And the...

... okay, not the heat. Keris is pretty sure nothing could get used to the heat here, except the probably-designed-for-it natives. Maybe they’re all part fire elemental. She wouldn’t be surprised.

Still, the point is, she’s been here for a while. Enough that even Sasi’s servants are starting to treat her as a fixture; albeit one who comes and goes at odd hours and leaves half-finished drawings and mosaics scattered around and sometimes plays the harp for hours on end and should be married instead of carrying on with another woman publically in the most _scandalous_ of ways.

She’s vaguely tempted to idly mention a few of the scandalous secrets she knows about them, having been in the same house for three months with a sense of hearing that goes past “superhuman” into outright supernatural. Then again, that would probably annoy Sasi. She’d have to hire new servants. And the new ones would just gossip even more obviously. Sigh.

Idle thoughts revolve through Keris’s head as she makes her way back home from the day’s silverworking lesson. She’s more or less mastered everything the Green Snake family have to teach her now, and is even improving on some of their methods with the hints she picked up from the masters’ workshops in the High Lands. Maybe she should open a little shop and get money for it? Oh, and there’s always that gift she’s planning for the Shashalme - speaking of which, there’s still a missing ingredient she’ll need for that. And Haneyl’s glee at her emeralds has made Rathan sulky, so she’ll need to find or make him something. She should start visiting the other misbegotten clans as well, now that Darling Yellow is following her. And...

“Child, perhaps you should focus more on what the All-Makers sent you here to do?” suggests Dulmea.

“... right. Good point,” Keris agrees distractedly as she arrives home and enters through the window as is her habit. “I’ll get on that. Some more. I sunk the Mercy, though, so that’s a start, right? And... uh...”

Sasi is sitting at her desk, looking annoyed.

“... Sasi? Is something wrong?”

Sasi purses her lips. “It is nothing, Keris,” she says, sounding distracted. And then she reconsiders. “Well, perhaps it is something. Something beyond,” she glowers at her stomach, “this little pest kicking me, at least. Sit. How are you feeling? I’ll have some tea brought, and we can discuss it. Or are you hungry?” She sighs. “I’m finding myself feeling hungrier and hungrier. I’m getting cravings for things I can’t actually digest - or couldn’t before. I think I’ve internalised a new secret of Malfeas because of this. She must get it from her father.”

Keris folds down to the floor, automatically going into proper seiza and starting to play softly, as though Dulmea were watching her with a teaspoon ready to rap any fingers used to hold the cups.

“I’m doing well,” she replies. “I’ve more or less learned everything the Green Snake workshop has to teach me, and I’m planning to make a gift for the Shashalme to thank them for their generosity.” She smiles proudly. “It’s a very fitting one. Though I still need an earth elemental and some vitriol. Shouldn’t be too hard to get my hands on one, though, and I can keep it sedated and unconscious on the way back across the Desert.”

“I don’t believe you’d fail at that,” Sasi says, and waits until the tea and the small cracker-like biscuits and the chilli paste arrives before continuing. “So,” she says, delicately spreading some chilli paste on a biscuit and taking a bite - apparently her mouth is simply immune to the heat, “the thought occurs to me that perhaps, dear one, you might be able to take a look at Buk Moi. I have heard rumours that a shadowland has formed there, and at the very least you might be able to seal it, no?”

Keris purses her lips. “With salt? Possibly... huh. Actually, what happens if I make a Kimberian lake on a shadowland?” She purses her lips and lifts a teacup with a coil of hair. “Well, there’s one really easy way to find out, I suppose. And I can dispel it again afterwards to leave no traces.”

“By all my studies,” Sasi says, “the effects should be the same as when I flood the area with the Desert - and of course, it is rather less suspicious to find flooding here than it is to find sand. That is to say, it suppresses it and with time naturally closes the shadowland.”

“Excellent.” Keris nods. “So you want me to go and poke around there and see if I can find out where the things that attacked you came from, and close up the shadowland while I’m down there, if there is one?”

Sasi nods. “Yes,” she says. “You have been practicing your art, yes? Perhaps it might be a good idea to get sketches of whatever you find, so I can take a look too.”

“Oooo! Yes! I can try some landscapes!” Keris bounces happily. “Hmm. Can I have a couple of those ghost-eating crows we took along to... that we had in Matasque?”

“Do you need them?” Sasi asks, raising her eyebrows.

Keris shrugs. “I’m going to investigate a maybe-shadowland, and I figure that if they eat ghosts, they’re probably not bad at finding them, right? Two more sets of eyes can’t hurt, anyway.”

“Well... I don’t have any bound at the moment,” Sasi admits. “They’re... somewhat high maintenance, as they’re compulsively driven to eat ghosts and pollute water in the area.”

“Drat. Oh well.” Blowing out a sigh, Keris scowls peevishly. “Really need to learn how to summon myself,” she mutters, half to herself. “Maybe I’ll see if I can learn over Calibration.” She perks up. “Oh! Have you summoned any of my serfs yet?”

“I was planning to do it when I was back in the City, and had time to document things properly. I simply haven’t had time to devise the proper rituals, and I found my classic summoning cannot reach your soul world. That would be a good idea,” Sasi says. She puts her tea down and rises, looking through one of her bookshelves. “Where was I? Ah yes. Maps of the area, maps to get there, what else?”

Keris chews her lip. “I’m better prepared for anything nasty this time, a-and... and there won’t be anything like... like that thing that was in the tomb.” She shivers. “Uh... set up a time of day I can contact you with a cherub if I need to?”

Sasi smiles gently. “I get into bad habits when you’re not around, remember? Let’s say the third hour past midnight.”

Keris rolls her eyes. “You’d sleep all day and do everything at night if you could,” she accuses fondly. “Okay, that sounds good. I’ll leave tomorrow morning.”

Sasi smiles openly. “Thank you,” she says, sounding a little bit awkward and less suave than usual. “I got you something, by the way,” she adds, sounding rather more like herself. “A present, if you will.”

“Oh?” Keris cocks her head curiously, and not a little eagerly. “What is it?”

Reaching up to on top of one of the shelves, Sasi settles down with a fine wooden box, resting it down in front of Keris. It’s square, and about as wide as Sasi’s forearms are long. “Open it,” she says.

Keris does so, and finds that it’s a collection of little stoppered clay jars. She checks the labels. They’re names of colours. Lots and lots of colours. Keris quickly counts and there’s... there’s twelve by twelve different colours! That’s over a hundred!

“You have been playing around a lot recently with inks and art,” Sasi says easily. “So I made you a range of different forms of colouring agent. Lots and lots of forms of dried ink that you can mix up and use. I get through quite a few of these colours myself, when I forge things.”

Keris gapes at the gift, lifting some of the jars and marvelling at the colours within. Her jaw opens and closes soundlessly a few times.

This is... this is unprecedented, actually. Oh, she’s been given gifts before - far grander and greater ones. The Reclamation gave her a palace and a host of servants. The Shashalme gave her maps, _Sasi_ bought her the pretty golden earrings she wears, and Kasseni gave her that beautiful necklace.

But... but those weren’t like this. Those were gifts for Keris the new Infernal Exalt. Or Keris the demonic assassin, or Keris the pretty girl, or... well, the point is, all of them were gifts that could have been given to any woman, or any new Princess of the Green Sun, or any assassin someone was trying to bribe.

These, though.

Keris’s painting is just... it’s just a thing she likes doing. It’s not connected to her mission. It’s got nothing to do with her orders, or her status, or her power. It’s something that’s just hers; a personal hobby and a way of finding joy in making beautiful things.

This is a gift for Keris. Specifically Keris. Sasi must have seen how much she likes to paint, and gone and made something perfectly suited to it.

Tears gather in Keris’s eyes, and the box vanishes in a whirl of hair. A fraction of a second later, Keris all but throws herself at Sasi, wrapping her up in a desperately loving embrace.  It’s so romantic that Sasi doesn’t even seem to mind that Keris’ spontaneous display of affection means she split her tea over herself.

Oh well. She’s fairly swiftly out of her wet clothes anyway.

The next morning dawns hot and sticky. As usual. An Teng is contriving to get _even hotter_ somehow, and Keris is glad that she’s heading to the north. Buk Moi is around two hundred miles north, up the Blue Dragon River, so she’s hoping it’s a little cooler there.

Swimming at top speed, it only takes a few hours to get there - part of which is due to Keris accidentally overshooting a teeny tiny bit and having to backtrack ten miles after realising that the latest fork in the river is in fact on the wrong side of where she’s trying to get to. She emerges dripping, drinks herself dry, and takes stock of her surroundings.

Well, it’s certainly cooler here. Yes. Certainly cooler. In fact, it’s overcast and the sky is leaden. The trees are all dead. Buk Moi used to sit amidst the mangrove swamps. Now its ruins lie among leafless dead trees, and Keris can taste the decay and the blood in the water.

So. Shadowlands. Keris goes over what she knows about them, which... isn’t a lot. Wait, no. You usually get Dead things, and everything’s all dark and grey, and plants and stuff are all sickly, and... things like that. Oh, and at night they’re in the underworld and in the day they’re in Creation! Yes, she remembers that. If you go into one during the day and then leave at night, you’ll be in the land of the Dead instead of the land of the living.

...

... oh, she realises. Shit.

‘Dulmea?’ she asks tentatively. ‘Please tell me I didn’t just walk into a shadowland by accident without noticing the edge.’

“I don’t know!” Dulmea blurts out. “I’ve never seen one before.”

Echo nods, and agrees that Keris totally did and she should watch where she’s going more.

‘Hush, you,’ Keris thinks at her, and then realises the stupidity of this statement. Echo’s soundless laughter somehow evokes a mockingly pointing finger and smirking gaggle of her wind-cherub friends. Keris sends her a mental glare in retaliation.

“Okay, then the first thing to do is find out how big it is,” she decides. “It’s still daytime for a while, so if I start running in a straight line, I’ll come to the edge eventually, and then I can sort of circle round the outside.” She turns carefully, and shrugs. “I’ll follow the river back,” she adds. “So I don’t get lost again.”

It’s not very large, really, Keris realises after some swimming. It’s only perhaps a mile wide, and doesn’t even cover all the ruins of Buk Moi and its surrounding settlements. It’s mostly the docks and the merchant palaces which seem to be affected.

Buk Moi itself is almost silent by the standards of cities this size, though. Keris can hear only a thousand human voices. By her guess, there used to be maybe ten thousand inhabitants.

And Keris can hear the hollow, whispering Dead. They hide in the buildings. Away from the light. They’re in the river and they’re in dark spaces and some are hiding in the cracks in the earth. They hunger.

She gulps. Okay. Okay. It’s smaller than she’d feared, but still imposing. If she invokes the waters of the Great Mother... perhaps seven or eight times, she can cover the entire thing. Unfortunately, that would flood most of the docks, collapse walls and buildings, turn streets into marshy bogs and generally render the city uninhabitable.

Also, you know, mutate everything and probably call attention to her.

Hmm. A knotty problem.

Clambering out of the water, Keris runs up the burned out remnants of the grandest merchant prince palace which used to stand upstream of the docks. From the top of the gutted marble structure, she can see where the gates were torn off and the remnant communities surrounding this place. By the gates, that’s where the scavengers seem to be based out of.

No bodies, though.

((Hmm. Okay, rolling Compassion and Temperance.  
Compassion 3; 1 sux.  
Temperance 2; 3 sux.))

There are still people in the city. That’s... an uncomfortable fact. Keris remembers Nexus. And she remembers Matasque, too. Mutated areas like that are _noticeable_ , and there’s already a Wyld Hunt looking for the thing that sunk the Mercy. Sitting in the middle of a landscape of death, Keris is well inclined to be cautious.

She checks the sky. Still daytime. She can’t get in touch with Sasi until after midnight, and - hahaha - there is _no way_ she is staying in this place after dark, when it falls into the underworld and Dead things come out to roam the land.

Perhaps, Keris decides, this isn’t something to tackle today. She jumps down from her perch and sets out for the edge of the shadowland and the safe, living water beyond it. She’ll wait until nightfall, be on her guard against any Dead that wander out of the shadowland, and talk to Sasi about how acceptable the risk of detection is.

Or, Echo suggests extravagantly, she could run around the shadowland at night and kill eeeeeeverything with Echo’s help and that would be lots of fun!

“Mother,” Haneyl says curiously, “I wonder if plants can grow in dead things which are still moving around? Why do they still walk around?”

((Valour 3; 1 sux.))

Keris shakes her head. “I don’t want to risk getting caught by... I mean, it would waste time that I need to talk to Sasi and stuff, and...”

She can almost see Echo in front of her, nodding in understanding and then tucking her hands into her armpits and walking around miming the clucking strides of a chicken. It’s fine that Keris wants to cluck in a tree and go clucking to Sasi to advice, she seems to say. That’s a totally clucking choice for her to make, and nobody would cluck her as a coward for making it.

“ _I_ wouldn’t be afraid,” Haneyl adds, supporting her sister. “I would go out there and set all the dead things on fire, and then put them out and grow things in them so they could be useful and feed pretty plants. That’s what _I_ would do.”

“...” says Keris. “... _fine_ , you brats. I’ll go clear out some of the Dead things. I didn’t think they were worth my _time_ , since they’re not going to be any challenge or anything, but if you want to see me cut them up _so badly_ , I guess I’ll be a good mama and... and indulge you.” She sniffs haughtily. “But I can’t do that until they come out at sundown. So I’ll do some sketching until then, up in this tree.”

Suiting word to deed, she settles herself in the withered branches of an dead conifer and pencils a quick sketch of the extent and shape of the shadowland onto a map of the area, and then a more detailed series of sketches of the ruined city from various angles.

She ends up having to move a few times, switching trees and venturing back into the city to add detail to her sketches. She keeps an eye and an ear open for anything that might be stirring during the day - she hasn’t forgotten Rat, and how he was a Dead thing that was also an Exalt - and she lets the brand on her forehead burn as she takes in the hiss and crackles of essence and the hum of the immaterial. Here and there she stops to taste the ground, making a face at the foul taste of death in the soil.

Keris looks at her drawings, and as she puts things together. Oh. Hmm. The pattern of devastation is quite clear. They went for the dock areas and the merchant palaces. But the warehouses... weren’t really touched. Neither were the outer bits of the city. They went after the merchant housing specifically. And the grand building that was the HQ of whatever they called their Guild version. They must have had specific targets.

It looks like... whatever did this - and she’s becoming increasingly sure that it was something like her that did this - was going for trade. Or rather, the people running the trade. They left the goods untouched, but killed off everyone who was moving them and the ways they had to do so.

That has... a lot of very worrying implications. Keris doesn’t even know what most of the implications are, and she still knows they’re very worrying.

... in fact, she thinks, since they went to so much trouble to leave the warehouses intact, and since she’s probably going to end up destroying the city anyway, _really_ , it behooves her to go and liberate the contents of the warehouses to ensure that they aren’t used for evil by the rotting hands of the Dead.

Firmly convinced of the moral righteousness of her cause, Keris ambles on over to the warehouses and enters via the roof, mentally directing Dulmea’s chell-drones to clean out a vault in preparation for everything she’s about to add to her hoard.

The food is rotting - and what she’s found smells wrong. There’s something off about it. It’s been poisoned, she decides from the smell. She knows what bad food is like very well, but this is somehow worse. Someone poisoned the food and that’s why it’s still here.

On the plus side, Keris _does_ find a very nice consignment of green-glazed tea china pieces which have both Dulmea and Haneyl cooing over them.

She sets fire to the food, slashing it with Ascending Air in quick, economical blows that leave tendrils of green fire in their wake. The poison has probably already killed some - there’s no need to let it kill others, if whoever poisoned it comes back for it. And hey, maybe the smoke rising from within the warehouses will draw them out of whatever pit they’re hiding in. Worth a shot. Then it’s just a matter of waiting for nightfall - and perhaps exploring some of the abandoned, ruined houses for any valuables that might have been left behind.

There’s another thing she realises as she pokes around. The squares outside the grand palaces. There are black markings on the burned courtyards, still visible although worn away. Keris sniffs. She can smell the old blood in the air. Lots of blood. Her mouth waters at the smell of all that meat. But the markings, they’re... they’re familiar in some way. She should get drawings of them for Sasi and try to work out what the Old Realm markings say.

Keris sketches the markings as best she can, and traces around them with tongue-fingers, picking up on the hints of ash and char marks that are no longer visible to the eye, reconstructing the bits of the markings that can no longer be seen in her drawing before trying to translate them. She can’t read them fully... but what she can read is enough. She recognises that... that they sort of resemble the way Sasi does things. Only not. Because the characters are all twisted and wrong and there are ways of writing them which is _wrong_ and...

... Keris realises she’s chewing nervously on her hair, and tries to calm down. Some of the things, yes, they’re... they’re like binding circles. Only they’re horrible and they stink of death and... and... and she can smell all the death from inside them and all the blood.

Keris swallows. Hard. She... she thinks the circles were... were... they were killing people in them. And binding them also. Binding their ghosts and maybe making the corpses walk again. Why did they want the ghosts too? The ghosts of the merchants?

Were... were these what they used to make the things that attacked the conference? She tastes the black marks again, trying to judge how old they are. No, Keris thinks as she licks them, they’re... the same age as the blood. So no. This is what they did afterwards. After they took the place, they... they killed the people in a way to make them leave ghosts and... well, what did they do with the ghosts?

Maybe she needs to find some ghosts and beat it out of them. See what they did here.

Keris cracks her knuckles and braids her hair. She checks the edge of Ascending Air and touches up the poison on her spear. She checks the lowering levels of the sun, and smiles.

Right then. Time to see how much ghosts are willing to talk about when they’ve been pinned to a rock and poisoned. She’s pretty sure now that whoever did this was behind the attack on Sasi, and...

... well. She’d rather like a word with them. Just the one word. And a lot of screaming as a reply.

There are plenty of ghost and Dead things around here. They’re hiding in the dark places, inside buildings, underground. They might be immaterial, but Keris can still hear them. They’re waiting for the sun to set. Not all of them are even immaterial. The ones in bodies have to hide their slowly rotting flesh from the hateful daystar.

Keris hums happily, with the innocent expression of one doing work that is Righteous, Just and Good, as she locates one building in particular that seems to have several Dead things lurking within it.

It would be very unsporting, she thinks, to start fighting now. After all, she has an enormous advantage. They’re forced to hide inside, whereas she can go out in the light of day. The noble, honourable thing to do would be to wait until nightfall and face them fairly, or go inside and meet them on their own turf.

Since Keris is not at all noble, honourable or fair, she raps the wall smartly with the butt of her spear, listens carefully for where the supporting columns are, and then carves clean through them from outside the building with beautiful arcing butterfly cuts that slice through the thin walls like paper.

There are lots of ghosts and ghouls in town. She can afford to get an early start in dealing with them.

The building comes crashing down; the walls folding inwards and the roof breaking apart into chunks as it hits the rubble. Keris waits for the smoke to clear, then delicately jumps onto an unstable pile of bricks, turns a cartwheel, hops over a piece of roof and brings her spear down clean through a foot of fractured stone and a rotting hipbone.

Spreading her hair in a great curtain behind her to cast a small patch of shade, she digs in what her ears tell her is roughly the right area until she finds a sluggishly bleeding, partially skinless face.

“Hello!” she says cheerfully. A ghost rises out of the wreckage to her left, and a hair tendril decapitates it without Keris looking away. It vanishes with a warbling scream. “I have some questions to ask you. You’re going to answer them. Understand?”

The Dead thing is using a woman’s body, but from the hissing of the spirit within and its shrieks, Keris thinks it was originally male. Not that it makes much a difference to what it is right now. Its jaw hangs too wide open and has been fitted with iron teeth, and she can hear the scraping of the spider-like extra limbs fitted onto it. There’s preservatives in its veins, too. Someone made it like this. It’s not just a ghost possessing a convenient body.

“I... I hear,” he hisses. “Let me go!”

“I’ll let you go,” Keris promises, neglecting to add that she intends to let it go in several pieces. It doesn’t need to know that part. It might upset it. “Once you answer me three questions. Who made you? What for? And where are they now?”

She keeps her face stern and her eyes narrowed as it babbles replies. She can’t listen to its heartbeat the way she can with living people, because... well, it doesn’t have one. But it still has a voice, and she can hear the sickly slithering of its necrotic Essence, and that should be enough to pick out any untruths it tells, especially with her spear lodged through its hip as an agonising warning. She gives it a twist now and then as a reminder; forcing the creature down to the basest level of survival, where it can’t muster the mental energy to lie to her convincingly.

“I...” the thing lets out a rattle. It’s speaking Firetongue. “I... can’t remember where I was born. The singing from Te Frei. Down deep. Down into the Rivers. Swimming to Te Frei. Listening to her words. She teaches. She knows the truth. They speak through her. She does what they will. We do what she wills. Out into the burning light. Wrapped in bodies of meat and iron. Hide from the sun! The sun! He hates us! Hide from the moon! She hates us, fogs our minds! Crawling in stagnant waters. Crawling over walls. Find the rich men. Ask the rich men the questions. Kill them so they tell the truth. Make them. Take them to the rivers and cast them in. Take their bodies.” It lets out a wet chuckle. “Find the crown. Someone here knew. We had to look for them. Kill them. Make them tell the truth.”

“What questions? What _crown?_ Where is Te Frei?” Keris presses, though she thinks she knows. There’s one really obvious possibility, after all. One that’s located in another shadowland already, if rumour is to be believed.

“The crown. Any crown. If a newborn knew, we told her. She was sent by Her. From Te Frei. A Dead city. Deep. Deep down. In the Labyrinth. Her domain. Yes.”

“Whose domain? An Exalt? Someone like me?” Keris gestures at the burning green circle on her forehead. “Something like this, but black?”

((Or a Deathlo- wait.))  
((... you are _not_ using who I think you are using.))

“She served Her. Yes. Spreads her words. The words that whisper.” It lets out a rasping noise. “Bloody red and purple burning around her like fire. Blood on her forehead. She fed it to some. They became hers.”

With a snarl, Keris rips the spear up from the Dead thing’s hip through its chest and head, killing it instantly and for good. The body starts to dissolve into sludge as she sets off running automatically. She has no destination, no plan, not even any real thought or need to get anywhere. She just needs to be moving in order to _think_.

So. So. A Dead Exalt. And something else, from the way it had been saying _‘Her’_. Something like... like the Mask of Winters had been to Rat; something ancient and Dead and powerful, down in a city in the Labyrinth called Te Frei. Something with interests in An Teng.

Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck. Sasi needs to know this _tonight_.


	26. Chapter 26

With what she knows now, Keris can only assume that the Dead were after something that one of the merchants here knew. It’s maybe an hour or two until sunset in the shadowland. She vaguely remembers Geasea mentioning something about how a flaring anima makes the world around you play by your rules, including the Underworld, so she won’t die instantly if she gets caught down there. The question is whether she wants to investigate leads down there, or if she’s going nowhere near that place.

“Maps,” she says out loud, mostly to herself. “Dulmea, my maps. Gimme.”

Somewhat bemused, Dulmea passes them out. Keris spreads the ancient, elaborate maps out with her hair, searching the area around An Teng. “Te Frei,” she explains as she looks. “A Dead city, right? But it must have been alive once. And if it’s deep - deep down in the Labyrinth - it’s probably old. I wanna know how old.” She discards a late Shogunate map and switches to an earlier one, eyes flickering over it. “Some of these go back to the High First Age. It should be on one of them.”

“Te Frei, Te Frei,” Keris mutters to herself, trying to read the formalised and styled Deliberative Old Realm whose writing system is different from the Malfean Old Realm she’s used to - almost more akin to High Realm.

She eventually finds it on a Deliberative Map, on an island which... uh, doesn’t exist on the Shogunate maps. It’s North of here, on the hook of the South West coast closest to the Blessed Isles, in the mountain range. Or, rather, the island was part of the mountain range extending into the water or something... look, it marks it as being an mountainous place and Keris isn’t great with maps. When she cross-compares it with her modern maps, she can’t see any major cities near it - nothing like the Lap or Chiaroscuro. Was the island destroyed, or was the channel filled in? Given it’s not on the Shogunate maps, though, that suggests something dramatic happened to it.

((In L-Water 13-Air \- about 1000 miles from An Teng, all in all. Which is about the same distance it is from London to Southern Spain.))

The temptation to send an Infallible Messenger to Sasi right now asking what to do is very strong. Keris suppresses it. Sasi’s mostly recovered from her freak-out about the Red Moon, but her mood is still pretty fragile, and she wouldn’t take a sudden disruption well. She’ll send a message at the proper time. Besides, at the moment she’s creeped out and scared, but she hasn’t actually been _threatened_ by anything.

Yet.

She does send a message to Boromono, though.

“Sasi,” she begins, “I’m going to be contacting you later tonight, so this might not matter, but I’m sending this anyway just in case something happens and I’m...” she pauses, considers her words, and opts for tact. “... too busy to use the Shrine. I found the shadowland. It’s worse than we thought.”

She takes a breath and clenches her jaw. Her instinct is to blurt everything out in one go, but Sasi might not understand it all if she did that. And this is serious.

“Uh... the shadowland is about a mile across,” she says. “The city is done for. The only way I can close the shadowland would be to sink half of it under a mutagenic lake, and there are only about a thousand people left alive here anyway. The Dead went straight for the docks and the merchant palaces, but they left the warehouses alone - they wanted the goods, but got rid of the people and the ways they were moving them. The food in the warehouses was poisoned, too. I think they were summoning ghosts into the corpses ritually - there were still binding circles left outside the palaces.”

Another pause as she dredges her memory for details and gets her thoughts in order. “I questioned one of the Dead things I found here. It had been engineered - iron teeth, extra limbs - like a demon grafter had gone at it. It said something summoned it in the Underworld and sent it to ask the merchants questions. Sasi, they were looking for a crown. I think maybe the Seven Lotus Crown.

“And it gets worse, too. It said it had been summoned to a place called Te Frei. Sasi, I looked it up on my maps. Te Frei is almost a thousand miles away! And it hasn’t _existed_ since the Deliberative! The island it was on, just off the northern edge of the Firepeaks? It _vanishes_ on the Shogunate maps. The Dead thing said it was deep in the Labyrinth, and it was summoned by someone with a bloody caste mark on her forehead. And she was serving someone. A _Her_. Like the Mask of Winters, I think. Something as ancient as the Deliberative that can extend its reach a thousand miles to murder a whole city in search of the High Queen’s crown.”

Keris worries a lock of hair between her teeth. “I’m going to stay in the shadowland until nightfall. Go a bit deeper, find some Dead things that are more than cannon fodder and maybe get a name for whatever it is that’s doing this. I should be fine. Anything I can’t kill I can outrun, and anything I can’t outrun I can hide from.”

One last pause. The cherub is vibrating in place, obviously eager to go; its memory starting to strain.

“I love you,” Keris finishes, and lets it go. The cherub finishes with a small pop. Keris looks to the west, where the sun is descending down towards the ocean she can barely see from her high position perched on top of a building.

“Right,” she sighs. “Well. I might as well start now.”

She can feel Echo dancing in glee inside her. The parts of the city overrun by the Dead are already mostly ruined. A few more collapsed buildings won’t matter much, especially if Keris sinks the city on Sasi’s orders. And if she’s going to start questioning the Dead, she might as well make use of what sunlight she has left.

Closing her eyes, Keris listens for the next-nearest accumulation of corpses and ghosts, and sets out to ask them some pointed questions.

Keris goes through quite a few Dead things before finding a formula that works to locate the ones that know... anything at all, really. Haneyl certainly appreciates the way that Keris plunges roots deep into the mindless undead zombies and plants her seeds there and commands them to devour the walking corpses from within, but since she doesn’t get anything out of it it’s sort of a waste of time.

No, targeting the smart ones is a better way. Specifically, she listens for speech. The Dead aren’t like demons, for whom making music is ingrained as a survival instinct and who’ll often hum or sing or even just tap out melodies to have noise around, but they’re mad, broken creatures who can be predictable in their insanities. A lot of them mutter or whisper or rant to themselves; strings of nonsense words and gibberish besides feverish mantras of the passions they cling to.

They’re mad and crazed and broken. But they can talk. They can think. They can remember information that’s useful.

Haneyl is adorably happy to help when Keris finds them. With pangs of supernatural hunger lancing through their bellies, a bone-porcelain knife nailing their hand or leg to the floor and a smiling, terrifying face asking them eerily cheerful questions and promising them freedom from pain and hunger if they answer truthfully, most of them are all-too-willing to spill everything they know. Indeed, the biggest difficulty Keris runs into is sorting through all the information they blurt out in the face of her questioning.

((3+5+3 Mendaciloquent Maverick+1 bonus {something they want to believe}+2 stunt=14. 11 sux.))  
((Heh. You know most “zombie” and “walker” dead have “Eat” as a 5 dot Principle?))  
((: D))  
((I am a cruel person.))

It grows dark. Keris feels the world around her shift and become cold and... and dead and alien. The world itself smells of rot when she uses Malfean power.

And now the dead are solid and material.

It doesn’t help the creeping shadows or the whispering monsters. It just means some of them try to jump on her.

By this point, Keris has found out some quite interesting things. ‘She’ is alternatively known as ‘Her’, ‘The Lady’, ‘The Whisperer’, ‘The Mourner’, ‘the Voice’, and ‘the Listener’. None of them have ever met her, but the ones who know her fear and adore her with equal measure. It’s not love. It’s more like... it’s like reverence for something which _is_.

By contrast, the woman who bled from her forehead is ‘My Lady’, and several have met her. From what Keris can deduce, she’s got dark hair, and her skin tone looks like she’s from the Scavenger Lands, the Realm or the north coast of the South. Not Tengese - the ghost say she’s too pale and her eyes are the wrong shape. She apparently has necromantic spells which can bind many ghosts at once and one of the ghosts says that she took him with her from Nightsea Isle.

Deciding that the inhabitants of the city probably wouldn’t still be there if they couldn’t survive a night in the Underworld when the Dead can touch the living - and that the number of Dead things in the city has fallen sharply from her activities anyway - Keris prepares herself to venture deeper into the Underworld in search of more useful information.

It is at this point she encounters her first problem. How, precisely, does one go deeper into the Underworld?

The sky above her is dark. The stars aren’t the normal stars. There’s a cluster of glowing lights in the sky going from east to west, in a vast band. There’s no moon that she can see.

And it’s too quiet. Dead quiet. There aren’t little things living in the undergrowth. There’s only big things.

The cold is all around her, biting at her. Her inner fires are keeping her warm, but it’s all around her. She can feel it digging at her. Her fingers and her toes are too far away from her fire and it’s chilling her.

But she can hear from further away that the cold would be worse, that she’s just in the shallows. And the shallows is right. Keris knows the water. She knows rivers. She can hear the rivers here, rushing in a way that they don’t in Creation - and the rivers are going deeper. Down, deeper into the cold. This town is like an island here in death, surrounded by rivers - even though there’s only a river on one side in Creation. So given that the rivers are different here and there, that means the rivers might be how this place is navigated. And that would fit with her folk knowledge of the “Ferrymen of death” who she heard in of in Nexus from a Sijanese drunk.

At least she should be more comfortable in the water. The coldness of the harbour never bothers her, anyway. Making her way to the river, Keris slips into the dark, silent waters with nary a ripple, and follows the rushing sounds of the currents that lead down into the rotting underbelly of the world.

((Soooooooooo))  
((Keris~))  
((do u have a shaping defence?))  
((I can, if I need to, stunt insta-buying one with my stockpiled xp. I hope?))  
((You just jumped into one of the Rivers of Death. What did you think would happen?))  
((... that it would be transport around the Underworld that’s more similar to the Wyld and the Bordermarches/Middlemarches than an instakill thing, since I’m only in a shadowland and I’m flaring my anima at a low level and have a surprise anticipator for anything that might threaten me.))  
((It’s not insta-kill, but it _does_ mutate Dead who fall in them and there’s a reason people use boats.))  
((... ah. Well, if it’s mutative it presumably doesn’t work instantly, and allows a roll to resist. And Sasi said she can undo Shaping.))  
((Alternatively, you can flare up to aura level to make a bubble of Mythos around you))  
((dammit keris y u so trusting of “i’m safe in water”))

As soon as she touches the water, Keris knows something is wrong. She’s used to being safe and at home in water. She hadn’t actually realised just _how_ used to it she’d become until slipping into a river that feels...

... well, she’s fairly sure this is probably what drowning feels like for mortals. She never got the chance to find out when she was mortal, since she couldn’t swim and stayed far away from any water deep enough that she’d need to, but the cloying, bitter, necrotic cold that covers her face and fastens fingers around her throat is sufficiently horrible that she’s sure it would have been like this if she had.

She flares her soul on instinct, panicking, already turning back for the bank. But no. As the red whirlwind of ephemeral water erupts around her, the cold-dead- _wrong_ feeling recedes. The red glow and flashes of silver are comforting in their familiarity, and the sense of the Essence around her is like home.

The water recoils from her. Burns away in the anima-light. Leaves her standing in thick, black, stinking mud which smells like... well. Keris knows exactly what it smells like. When she was twelve or so, a body washed up in the river near one of her hide-outs. It got wedged under a jetty right in the Season of Fire, and that meant it was stinking and rotten and bloated, vomiting up dead gas from a burst stomach. The mud smells like that. Only worse.

The water forms walls around her. It doesn’t like her. It evaporates like shadows in light from her soul. Well, Keris thinks, pouting. This... makes things a bit more complicated. She can still hear the currents, but that terrible wrongness in the water is giving her second thoughts about venturing deeper in search of answers. She is, she’s becoming aware, very much not equipped for this. Urgh! If only Geasa were here with her!

Backing out of the stinking mud back up onto the bank, she purses her lips and thinks. The third hour past midnight, Sasi had said - but if she arrives home and checks with Boromono, she may read Keris’s message and send a Messenger before that. Keris already has a fair amount more information.

... yes, she decides. She’ll wait to talk to Sasi before doing anything more. It’s not because she’s scared! It’s just... caution. And, and sticking to her mission and not getting distracted with stuff that might pull her off-course!

Yeah. And she can clear out the rest of the Dead Things in the city while she waits. Maybe work out a way to get the people out before she drowns it.

The city is... different here. And not just because it’s all creepy and cold and wrong. It is, weirdly enough, more _alive_ in a dead sort of way. The buildings are more intact - well, outside the shadowland and there are far more people around.

And by people, Keris means ghosts. They’re not breathing. But they’re talking to each other and... and a lot of them seem to be holed up in the bits of the city _outside_ the shadowland. She can hear the grumbling of guards and occasionally clanking gates. Beyond the shadowland bit, the buildings rise higher.

The world is grey, too, but she can see occasional splodges of colour. Like the bright red banners flying from a stone tower which - Keris realises - was knocked over in the real world. And the walls look thicker and higher here, too.

Well now. That’s interesting. Her soul is still glowing around her, so stealth is useless, but... well, from the sound of things, the ghosts aren’t much more than mortal. Keris walks up to the edge of the shadowland, her soul burning around her, looking out curiously with no attempt to hide herself.

These aren’t the monstrous Dead things that are preying on people, like the ones she’s been questioning. They’re not devoted to the Whisperer, either. They might know something - hells, they might be just as angry about the attack as the living! The people in charge, then, are the ones she wants to talk to. And, well. She’s pretty sure they’ll notice she’s here soon enough.

They look like people too, when Keris sees them. They’re not like the monstrous ghosts she’s... uh, stabbed repeatedly. They look like monochrome people with some marks of what killed them on their forms. There’s a barricaded wall fortification across one of the streets as she leaves the Shadowland and enters the Underworld proper.

“Stop where you are!” a man shouts at her in Firetongue. He’s grey-faced, and covered in pox-marks - and dressed in black iron armour. There are other guards in similar black chainmail swathings up there, carrying bows or swords and shields. “Don’t come any closer.” He pauses. “Who are you and what do you want, Anathema?”

“My name is Keris,” she calls, seeing no real reason not to be truthful. “I’m looking for whoever - _whatever_ \- did this.” She gestures back over her shoulder at the ruined city and the shadowland filled with hungry, twisted Dead. “Something called the Mourner - and the Whisperer and other things besides. Something with an Anathema serving it; a Dead one that turns corpses into killing machines. Something that attacked the conference and killed a lot of people because it was looking for something. I’m guessing you aren’t too happy about what it did either.”

There’s discussion - discussion that Keris can hear quite clearly. They don’t trust her because she’s an anathema, but they also don’t see what the harm is in telling her what she wants to know.

“They came from Down,” the lead guard says. “Broke through our defences, smashed half the city. They made a shadowland with more nephwracks and skinriders attacking from Creation-side and animates attacking, then their reinforcements came surging out. We’ve lost the docks and so many good men. Dragon’s curse the Labyrinth!”

“I’ve killed a fair number of the things still infesting the city,” she offers. “I can do another sweep to get rid of most of the ones that are left. Do you know anything more about them? Who sent them, or why?”

Keris can hear more discussion from behind the barricade, and then a woman with a broken neck which hangs to one side clambers up. Her face is pale and drawn and skull-like, and she’s wrapped in a grey-black funeral shroud which looks like monochrome purple. But her jewelry is bright gold and shining gems, and stands out more strongly compared to the rest of her.

“I am Silent Repose,” the woman says in a voice which is slightly croaky. “These things were nephwracks. Things lost to the Whispers, from deep within the lands of the Dead. They’re not like us. They listen to the whispers that come from the rivers and the orders of the Greater Dead. They don’t do things for sane, person-like reasons. Because they’re not people anymore. They’re _things_. Who knows why they attack, save that they hate us and they hate life and they hate everything, even themselves?”

Keris’s lips tighten, and she nods thoughtfully. “Whatever’s commanding them is doing it from... a long way away,” she informs the old ghost. “Like, a _really_ long way away. The other side of the Firepeaks. I’m willing to bet that they can only act here through their Dead Anathema.” She pauses to let that sink in. “If it helps any, I’m planning on killing her. But I need to close this shadowland first, and that, uh... might destroy the bits of the city in it.”

Something flashes across the dead woman’s face. “Why do you need to close it?” she asks in consternation.

Here, Keris is on ground she understands. “Because Sasi told me to” or “because I don’t want Dead things interfering in Creation” will probably not go down well as justifications. A little creative reasoning is needed here.

“Partly because it’ll get the Anathema’s attention and draw her out to where I can kill her,” she says instead. “And partly because it stops her getting back into the Underworld and away from me through it if it’s not here. But mostly, I need to close it because as long as it _is_ here, it’s a giant hole she can march troops like the ones she attacked you with through into Creation from the Underworld. And I don’t think you want that anymore than I do, ‘cause she’d be marching them through your city to get here.

“She left trade goods in the warehouses instead of destroying them, and she went to the trouble of poisoning them, too. She’s got plans for this place in mind, she’s not going to leave you alone after the first attack. But if there’s no shadowland here, and the few people in the city above are gone, she can’t march anything through and she can’t reopen it easily. It’ll be easier for her to go elsewhere. Somewhere I can be waiting.”

((Per + Pres, playing off the woman’s Principle of Buk Moi (My city).))  
((3+5+3 Mendaciloquent Maverick+1 bonus {grain of truth}+2 stunt+4 Kimmy ExSux {secrets, kept with guile, keep secrets by any means necessary}=14. 9+4=13.))

The dead woman’s face falls, but she sighs in that weary way which means she thinks Keris makes sense even though she wishes she didn’t. “I see,” she says sadly. “I fear for the survival of the city either way, but maybe this way it might have a chance and we might not be cut off entirely if the city dies.”

“I’ll try and do as little damage as possible,” Keris promises, feeling a little guilty about it. “And if I do it during the day, I’m pretty sure any side-effects will happen to Creation rather than your city. Just don’t drink the water, and you should be fine.”

She bows. “My thanks for your help, honoured grandmother. I’ll see if I can get people settling here again once the shadowland has closed.”

“I hope that too,” the woman says softly, “though I fear without the merchant princes this city will die a slow death.”

Bowing again in farewell, Keris retreats back into the shadowland and starts a slow sweep of the city, hunting down the twisted things - skinriders, the guard had called them, and nephwracks - and killing them. She avoids the houses of the living as much as she can. She doesn’t want to drag them into this until she has to.

She spirals inward from the edges of the shadowland, using her hearing to find them. They’re not spread out uniformly; most are in clusters and groups. Those unfortunates she does catch out on their own die quickly to casual whips of her spear that leave them bleeding out from poisoned wounds.

When she finds groups, she changes tactics, circling them at speed and using her anima-light and Mythos-bubble to make them clump together. In their defensive huddles, shrinking together for protection against her light and the hot, hateful feel of her Mythos, it’s easy to carve through them with Echo and leave none alive - uh, undead. Whatever the term is.

A few are stronger than the rest. Not as strong as Keris, but strong enough to cause her trouble. Those creations - and they are almost invariably the engineered things of iron and bone and necrotic craft - she kites, speeding past them and using the range of her spear to open poisoned wounds on them that bleed red gusts, passing them again and again until they’re too weak and pained to stop her killing blows.

She makes a deliberate effort to herd them away from the walls of the ghost-city around the shadowland, and to keep them away from the areas where the living cower inside too-fragile walls with only simple thaumaturgies and prayer to protect them.

((Dicepool is Physique + Melee, difficulty 8 to systematically exterminate every single Dead thing outside the armed encampments and avoid threatening the mortals))  
((5+5+3 Friagem Serpent+2 stunt+5 Adorjani ExSux {always in motion, kills because it is in her nature, balancing force of wickedness}=15. 6+5=11 sux.))  
((o keris. u so lethal. <3))

It’s not a fight. It’s a murder.

Red wind whipping around her, Keris darts past the largest and toughest of the dead she’s encountered to date. It’s some kind of hulking giant made from iron bones from a river dragon, with human heads attached to its skull. It’s incredibly tough and strong and there’s a wicked intelligence in its many eyes.

Keris systematically cuts it apart, blinds it, poisons it, and leaves it a stinking dead pile of iron and rotting flesh. And when she inhales, only the iron is left. The bone and flesh is gone.

That was the last one, hiding in a warehouse dormant.

Idly, Keris stabs the creeping Dead shadow which fled from it, and it burns alive - or whatever - in green fire.

She makes a quick trip back to the edge of the shadowland, where she hails the guard and bids them tell Silent Repose that she’s cleared the shadowland of the monstrous things infesting it, and then relocates to the top of one of the remaining towers to wait for a good time to contact Sasi.

She errs a little on the side of caution, since she’s not entirely sure of the time - she has several little pocket-watches in her Domain that the priests of Cecelyne don’t need to know about and can’t prove she owns, but she’s awful at remembering to wind them and so they show a range of times that spans about half an hour in total.

Waiting until the ones in the middle are about the right time, Keris polishes her Cherub Shrine’s paintwork with a sleeve, and eventually composes her message.

“Sasi,” she begins. “I’m fine; there’s no need to worry if you got the note I left you with Boromono. I’ve cleared the shadowland of dead things and made contact with the ghost-city outside it. They told me a bit more about what happened, and I found out a little more on the thing behind this from questioning nephwracks. But if I use the Great Mother’s gifts to close the shadowland, I’ll take ruin everything inside it from flooding. And the side-effects won’t exactly be subtle. You remember Matasque.”

((Clearly Keris should give Haneyl one of the watches. She’ll be obsessive about keeping it wound, especially if Keris tells her that she’s the official timekeeper.))  
(( : D ))  
((Clearly she should give her _all_ of the watches.))  
((Haneyl can bury them all to make special trees that grow clock-face fruit.))  
((... sigh.))  
((A flower clock.))  
(( : D ))  
((... keris stop planting them in Malfeas for lulz))

Keris watches as the cherub flickers, forms, and... shatters. The shrine feels hot and uncomfortable on her back, and there’s a crystalline whine from it.  “... gah!” she says intelligently. “What? How? Aaahhh! No! Work! No! Bad Shrine! Bad!” She stuffs it back into her Domain and looks around wildly. That... that seemed uncomfortably like countermagic. “Who did that?” she yells. “Come out where I can stab you!”

Keris vaguely remembers that... uh, it draws off ambient Essence. Keris is pumping out Yozi essence and everything else around her is Dead.

It... probably doesn’t like that.

“... oh,” she realises. “Damn.” She examines it with a critical eye, hoping she hasn’t broken it permanently. Well... well _damn_. That means she can’t talk to Sasi until morning.

... hopefully Sasi will work out why she’s not replying and not worry? Hah. Hah. Yeah, right. Okay, Keris will probably need to send her a message at... yeah, probably dawn, because if Sasi is worried sick about her then she probably won’t even go to sleep. Damn. She has a feeling she’s going to be apologising for this for a while.

A little glass fox bounds its way up to Keris as she sulks. It sits down, perking up its ears, and tilts its head.

“Dear one,” Sasi’s voice says very softly. “I hope you are still well and are not busy. I will speak with a certain edge of discretion here, because I do not wish to put you in danger.

“The involvement of the Dead Exalted confirms my worst fears - and from what you say, this one is also serving a Deathlord, one of the creatures from the depths of the Underworld even more powerful than the Greater Dead and comparable to one of the Unquestionable. I have not heard of Te Frei before now, but I will believe you when you say you have found it on a map.

“If they are looking for the High Queen’s crown, I believe I may have a lead for you. I know that one of the merchant princes there was Qirmiziyy al-Jazzar - a known scavenger lord and collector of occult items who notably was a recluse who seldom came to Buk Moi save for these meetings. And I know that because he was one of the ones who the Blood Red Moon was most interested in. His palace was by the waterfront, with the crossed golden butcher’s cleavers on the front. There may be something left there you can use - or at the very least you can confirm if he had found something recently.

“Take care, dear heart. Come back to me alive.”

“I will,” Keris whispers to the little fox as it vanishes. “I wish I could tell you that now.” She stands and stretches. “Still, I can make a start on your work while I wait to. Golden cleavers. Hmm. I think I remember those. Dulmea, wasn’t that where the thing with the huge snake skeleton instead of legs was?”

“I believe so, child.” Dulmea pauses for a moment. “Ah, Echo agrees as well. She wishes to remind you that it was where she cut the skin-rider with iron blades grafted to its hands in half lengthways.”

“Ohhh yeah.” Keris nods. “Yeah, I know where that is. Come on, let’s go see if they left anything.” She frowns. “... huh. I really hope that snake-thing wasn’t him. That would be kind of awkward, if I’d already stabbed our best witness in the face and set him on fire.”

There’s a silent nodding as Echo agrees that it’s so dreadful when it happens and that it’s almost as bad as when Rathan does something naughty and then makes everyone believe it’s your fault.

“Maybe this is Rathan’s fault,” Haneyl says artlessly.

“Stop picking on your brother,” Keris scolds absently as she covers ground towards the waterfront. “Soon he’ll be big enough to pick back. And don’t think I don’t know you’ve been floating seedpods out into the Sea to try and grow more trees there.”

“But Mother! Plants grow at sea! Like seaweed! And sargasso,” Haneyl whines.

“Does that mean he’s in charge of the rivers in your marshland?” Keris asks, grinning. She reaches the palace without incident - which is unsurprising, since she’s killed everything that might have caused one - and strolls in through the main doors, which are hanging off their hinges. “Hmm,” she muses, closing her eyes and listening to the creaks and echoes of the once-lavish, thoroughly-ransacked residence. “Now, if I were useful information, where would I be hiding?”

Echo suggests that it might be a hiding place.

“Down near the roots!” Haneyl declares.

Dulmea clears her throat. “Child,” Dulmea says, “consider perhaps his records? See if he bought something recently?”

Keris nods, and starts looking through the palace - starting at the bottom of the palace to appease Haneyl, and keeping an ear out for hiding places in light of Echo’s comments. Mostly, though, she’s looking for the records of sale. The Dead had the man’s ghost to question; there’s a fair chance they wouldn’t have bothered taking his ledgers. All she needs to do is find them.

She gets lucky, and finds the ledgers fairly quickly. They’ve already been rummaged through, but with Dulmea’s help she finds that while the recent purchases have been all removed, there’s a second on ‘payments and gratuities’ - that is, bribes - which hasn’t. There’s been payment to a member of House Ledaal living in Adorned With Wisdom as a Sapphire, in the Middle Lands - Ledaal Norono. Quite large bribes, too - and bribes of jade and the gift of a daiklave? And Sapphire is a teaching city, full of students and it’s one of the big places that knows a lot about Tengese culture and history.

Slipping the ledger into Dulmea’s keeping, Keris pilfers what she can find from the rest of the house, then sits on the roof and waits for dawn. She has quite a lot to tell Sasi, once morning arrives. And then quite a lot of work to do soon afterwards.


	27. Chapter 27

Dawn comes upon the silent landscape, and Keris feels the oppressive _horribleness_ of the Underworld lift. The sun has risen and even if sometimes she feels that the sun doesn’t like her, it’s worth that slight feel of malaise if the chill of death has lifted. The Underworld landscape fades and flickers beyond the edge of the shadowland as the light hits, leaving normalcy. Keris gleefully throws herself into the real, _proper_ water and bathes in the river, letting its warmth soak into her tired body.

She’s actually purring, she realises. And possibly frolicking. Rathan is certainly overjoyed, laughing and giggling around the occasional yell of “wa-ta!” to inform anyone still unaware of their new location.

... the sun has in fact risen completely above the horizon by the time Keris remembers that she should probably get back to Sasi. At this time of barely-even-morning-yet, Sasi will either be fast asleep and unwakeable by anything short of a cacophony considered loud by Malfean standards, or wide awake worrying about her. So Keris doesn’t feel too guilty about sending her an Infallible Messenger, keeping her voice low so as not to wake her if she has in fact gone to bed.

((Will my Shrine actually work, or did I break it?))  
((It’s damaged and charging slower - it’ll need repair from someone who can replace some of its bits.))

The cherub forms, though more slowly than she’s used to, and Keris begins with a hasty reassurance. “I’m fine,” she whispers. “Not hurt at all, nothing worse than a bit of creepiness happened to me and I was never in any real danger.”

“The river dragon skell-ing-ton tried to bite you in half,” Haneyl points out pedantically. Keris rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, but there was no chance of it actually _hitting_ me, so it counts as no danger. And anyway, then you and Echo helped me kill it, so it...”

There is a brief pause, in which Keris doesn’t actually voice the words ‘I said that out loud, didn’t I?’, but they hang in the air nonetheless. Echo’s soundless fits of giggling make a rather apt accompaniment.

“... _anyway_ ,” Keris continues, powering forward before hurriedly lowering her voice again, “my Shrine wouldn’t work, which is why I couldn’t get back to you - it didn’t like the Essence there, I think. Um... I found out quite a lot more about what we’re dealing with, and also cleared the shadowland of everything in it that was horrible, Dead, engineered or hostile. Which was basically everything. Whoever this Dead Exalt ‘Lady’ is, she _really_ likes her necrotech constructs.

“I got some more information from the ghost-city that was nearby, and another lead from al-Jazzar - he was paying some pretty big bribes to Ledaal Norono, up in Adorned with Wisdom as a Sapphire. There’s more on what attacked them, but it can probably save that until I get back.

“Right now I need a decision. I can close this place by flooding it, but it’ll destroy what’s left of the town, make about a thousand people homeless, and... uh, make a Kimberian lake about a mile across. Which might attract attention when it mutates all the local animals, you know? So if you think it’s worth the risk I’ll go ahead, but the army of Dead things in it is gone now, so it’s mostly a threat as a way for this Lady to bring in another one.”

A message comes back for Keris no more than fifteen minutes later, the little glass fox appearing in front of her. Sasi sounds... tense.

“Dear one,” she begins promptly.

“While I am delighted that you are safe and well, that you got yourself trapped in the Underworld for a night means you were careless! You need to be more careful! What would have happened if there had been more of the Dead Exalts there at the time! There would have been no escape for you!

“... well, no matter. Quite a bit of matter, but we will talk in person. I would suggest that you leave the shadowland for now. Should Dragonblooded or the Chosen of the Maidens investigate the site, they will find marks of the Great Mother’s power - and that would go poorly for us. At best, they would blame the Lintha for the destruction of the town. At worst, they would ask more questions, ones we do not wish answered. I will see if I can leak some information to the Realm officials in the area so they will take it more seriously - otherwise, we may have to wait several months before closing it, giving them time to investigate and meaning our masters will not be blamed for the attack on Buk Moi.

“The information you have found sounds interesting indeed. I will attempt to find out what I can about this member of House Ledaal. To spite them would amuse me - and aid in your mission too,

“With all my heart,

“Your beloved.”

Keris glances back at the shadowland. “Well, Silent Repose. I guess you get a few months’ grace,” she murmurs. “Good luck with it.”

Returning to her - gloriously watery and lovely and nice and warm and _proper_ \- river, she heads homeward. Sasi sounds upset with her, and it would probably be best to make her apologies in person.

Keris likes coastline travel, she decides. She just follows the coast southwards to Dragon’s Teeth. And she swims through a shoal of fish on the way there, so she gets to pick up a meal on the move. When she arrives, Sasi appears undecided about whether she’s mad or not. Her first act is to hug Keris and make a _startlingly_ thorough examination with her invisible hands to check that all of Keris’s bits are attached and undamaged.

Her second act, immediately afterwards, is to drag her by the ear into the cellars and scold her for almost five minutes solid, until Keris distracts her with a folder full of ledgers and charcoal sketches of the shadowland.  Thus placated, Sasi sits the two of them down in her basement, and makes tea with her invisible hands while she studies the documents with another set of invisible hands and holds onto Keris with her visible ones.

“It really was part of the plan,” Keris repeats weakly. “I wasn’t getting enough information from the day-crawlers, so I dipped a little deeper to ask some people who knew more. And the ghosts in the ghost-city were much nicer than the zombies and things; they barely pointed spears at me at all, told me what I needed, and then I re-killed everything for them.”

She frowns. “I think if we kill this Lady, we’ll be halfway solved. There’s no way the Deathlord is doing anything herself. She can’t be. She’s a thousand miles away across the Firepeaks - I don’t care how powerful she is, no _way_ can she be doing anything more than sending a few dreams and orders here herself. It’s her Exalt that’s running things locally. We kill her, we stop their plans cold.”

There’s a brief pause.

“... or... re-kill her, or whatever the right word is. Urgh! Stupid Dead. So annoying.”

“Hmm,” Sasi says, considering the problem. “Well, what leads do we have on her current location?”

Keris hooks a thumb at the five or six sheets of paper covered in quick sketches of various undead once-humans with heavily grafted war-corpuses. “Anywhere they show up is a pretty good place to start, I’d say. And... huh. Actually, wait, that’s better than I thought. She’s gotta be making them somehow. And she just lost a bunch she’d put a lot of time and effort into. If she wants to make more, she’ll need materials.”

Sasi shakes her head. “No,” she says, considering things. “There are too many little villages which can just go missing if she needs more components. Likewise on the... yes, look at the creatures. Iron, brass, flesh... all things she can get easily.”

She taps her fingers against her full lips. “I’ve made some enquiries about the House Ledaal person you mentioned,” she says. “Ledaal Norono. He’s gone native, so to speak. Water-Aspected. Lives full-time in Wisdom, dresses like a Tengese, has married a local woman - even though he has no interest at all in women and is a notorious flirt with male students at that place. He’s specialised in Tengese history and mythology. His family tolerates his conduct because he’s on very good terms with the locals, who trust him more because he acts like one of them.”

“Realm-trained and trusted here,” Keris muses. “Yeah, I can see how he might know about the Crown, if anyone does. Want me to go talk to him? I can probably pretend I’m from someone who was working with or against al-Jazzar, spend some more bribes to find out what he was paying for. It’d be mostly true, even.”

Sasi snuggles up against Keris. “I thought we’d both go,” she whispers into Keris’ ear. “He sounds like an interesting man to own, and if the Dead Exalt is after him too, I’ll want you along. There are lots of students at Wisdom. We’ll just be two handsome young men who’ll be looking for things of historical interest.” Sasi smiles. “Fortunately the Dragon can cover up that one of the young men is heavily pregnant,” she adds, patting her belly.

Keris’s eyes light up. “An outing?” she croons. “Together? Oh, that _does_ sound fun.” She cocks her head. “And if we’re up in the Middle Lands anyway, we can pay a visit to the Catalyst afterwards and I can show you around. Don’t worry,” she adds, smirking teasingly and starting to comb out Sasi’s hair with her own. “I still have a niiiice marble summer house, all cool and pretty and decorated, so we can stay in the lap of luxury. I can drop it out somewhere in the bamboo forests and there’s basically no chance of anyone finding us there.”

She pauses, cocks an ear, and makes a fairly good guess at what Sasi is thinking. “And yes, you can watch me drop it out of my Domain and study how I do it,” she adds.

Sasi nods. “Wisdom is actually a very interesting city,” she says. “Have you ever been there? It’s basically one massive college in a lot of ways - it’s one of the best places to study topics outside of the Realm - though of course it can’t compare to the Heptagram.”

“I think I went through it once?” Keris offers. “On my way somewhere else. Oh yeah! It was where I got Haneyl’s bracelet, I think. The one you emeralded for her.” She chuckles. “She still hasn’t taken it off, by the way.”

“She’s very sweet, then,” Sasi says kindly, stroking Keris’ hair. “I’d like to meet her some day.” She purses her lips. “Well, if we’re going to head up to Wisdom, I have to set my affairs in order. We’re running low on time - barely three weeks until we might have to set off to the City for Calibration.” Sasi tenses up, and Keris can read that she’s still worried about the trip back there.

Cuddling closer, Keris pulls herself into the taller woman’s lap and strokes back - a contest she can usually win via sheer quantity of hair even when Sasi brings her mind-hands into play. “It’ll be okay,” she reassures her. “We can send an agatae flight with some stuff we don’t mind too much if we lose, and you _know_ I’m good enough to survive almost anything. I beat... what was left of Rosseah. She can’t send much that’s worse than that was.”

Sasi makes an interested noise. “The thought occurs to me that this might be a suitable way of getting to Wisdom,” she says, slowly disentangling herself from Keris. “I will assume shadow form for the trip there. It will give you a chance to get used to it. Shall we go tomorrow or the day after that?”

“Well, coming _all the way back_ here from the shadowland tired me out a lot,” Keris says earnestly, with a very truthful and serious look. “I really think we should go tomorrow. I probably wouldn’t be able to make it if we went today. I’ll need a lot of rest to recover. In bed,” she adds, in case the message hasn’t quite been hammered in far enough yet. “But yes, good idea. It can get you used to swimming, too, since that’s our quickest means of travel.”

Sasi rubs her hands together. “Very well,” she says brusquely. “I’ll set things up and meet with a few contacts to get us identities which should hold up for long enough for us to need them. You should also prepare. We’ll be leaving before dawn tomorrow - I want to be clear of Dragon’s Teeth before the sun rises. We’ll have a busy few days ahead of us. And,” she adds, with a sly smile, “we’ll need to practice with our disguises. Get our stories straight.” She rises, and bends down to kiss Keris. “I have practice living as a man, but do you?” she asks teasingly.

Keris gives her a measured look. “You know what the most common work for a woman on the streets was, in Nexus?” she asks. “You know how many people assume any woman on the streets is doing it, if they look like one? Or looking to do it, at least.” She tosses her hair back. “Yeah, I’ve passed as a boy before. Though having this short again is going to be weird.”

“Ah.” There’s the strange look that’s almost pity on Sasi’s face when Keris talks like this. “Well, do what you can to help get ready. Hmm.” She frowns. “Perhaps you could prepare some artworks of various Tengese ruins and the like to bait him with. That’ll certainly help us attract his attention.” She turns to leave. “Anything else you want me to arrange before we leave?” she asks.

“No,” says Keris, the tray of inks having somehow appeared in her hair tendrils in the two and a half seconds between Sasi turning away and looking back to ask. “I’ll get star- oh, actually, if you can find something on the sorts of elemental that inhabit the Middle Lands, that could help. I can pick one up while we’re there.”

“I... will see if I can find any books, but in all honesty Wisdom is more likely to have that knowledge,” she says. “See you later, dear one.”

Keris waves goodbye absently, already immersed in sketches. She draws quite heavily from what she’s seen in her travels, remixing bits of the ruins of Shogunate-era buildings around the Catalyst and tracing, with no little amusement, a few of the symbols from the plug at the bottom of the mineshaft. The giant centipede gets a page all to itself - she can almost certainly spin a captivating story out of that one - and sprinkles around some of the things she saw and heard in the High Lands as well.

Most of what she does are charcoal or pencil sketches - some careful and detailed landscapes, others deliberately done hastily and in strong, rough lines that suggest adrenaline and fear went into the sketching. She fills a page with such sketches of the centipede, imagining the boy she’ll be playing hurriedly jotting them down as he ran to avoid it, or while hiding as it rampaged, and then consolidates them all in a full-colour brush painting on the back. The portfolio of a wandering artist documenting her - his - travels, often a little too close to the dangerous parts for his own health.

Smugly, Keris looks down over her newly produced portfolio once it’s finished. She’s outdone herself this time. In fact, it’s possible it’s a little too good for a mortal. She might want to conceal some of her better pieces and keep them for herself and Sasi and her children.

She’s also utterly covered in charcoal and ink. Well, mostly her hair. And her forearms. She licks a streak along her arm, exposing flesh under the black dust. Art is tasty. Packing most of the bits and pieces into a leather folder and tucking it away in the building in her City that she’s designated her Art Place, she spends a happy few minutes eating herself clean, and is interrupted by an offended-sounding trill and a coin hitting her in the side of the head.

Silver is tasty too, she thinks. Wait. Damn. She closes that mouth, glumly aware that it’s probably too late to spit the coin back out again after she’s already swallowed it.

“Quit throwing...” she starts, and then blinks. “Firisutu? Oh! Sorry, I...”

... forgot you were down here, she refrains from finishing, feeling more than a little ashamed. The little deva seems to have done well for himself - he’s still a rather wealthy mavaroska, and seems to have settled on a shiny and rather tastefully ornamented body, assuming the taste of a kleptomaniac magpie on a sugar rush.  He trills at her; apparently sulking.

“Hey... I’m sorry,” Keris says. “Really, I am. I’ve been... really busy with... what...”

She trails off, uncomfortably aware that “being busy” is an excuse that she personally would have spat in the face of and possibly stabbed, two years ago, if a parent had given it to her as a reason for abandoning their child. The silt-scavengers are one thing - they seem fairly happy in their muddy homes, and sort of glumly philosophical and content wherever they might be.

But she’d named Firisutu firstborn. He’d been the very eldest of her created races; older than any other. The first breath of life she’d ever given another being had been his.

And then she’d left him in Sasi’s cellar while she ran off to make cults and play with the Lintha.

Very carefully, and very seriously, Keris puts away the rest of her art supplies, kneels down in front of the little skull-faced monkey, and bows; touching her forehead to the marble floor.

“You’re right,” she says, meaning it. “That was wrong of me. I’m sorry.”

He runs his silver-trash-whatever finger-things over her face, clinging on like a little monkey. Which he sort of is. He likes being petted. She picks him up with her hair, stroking him, tossing him up and down and letting him trill in excitement and scamper around in it. She also works a few more strands of hair into the cocoon of bits and pieces that make up his form, weaving them into the mass of threads that is his true body to replace any that he’s lost, and lets him show her the nests he’s made, cooing appreciatively.

Keris looks at one of them - oh, huh, apparently the house across the road has a large basement which can be accessed through the shutters at the back, if that twirl isn’t lying - and then looks back just in time to watch as the little creature leaps into her hair, squirming around as he makes himself comfortable. “Tell you what,” she offers. “Sasi and I are going out up to the Middle Lands soon. Why don’t you come too? We’re looking for a special shiny thing - you might be able to help! And see new places, and find new bits for your body! Just be careful to stay out of sight of people, okay?”

Keris... feels that she is suddenly lacking weight in her hair. She massages the back of her skull. Firisutu is no longer there. Nor, in fact, is he anywhere in the cellar. She can’t hear him. At all. Wait, no. She _can_ hear his trilling. But... not pinpoint it? That’s impossible. Her hearing can pinpoint _moths_. From a hundred yards away! But all she can hear of Firisutu is a smug little trilling laugh that’s entering her head without seeming to go via her...

“... you’re kidding,” she says in disbelief as the penny drops.

There’s a delighted gasp from Haneyl. “Mother mother mother mother mother!” Haneyl squeals. “I found a _pet_. He’s _shiny_. And covered in _valuables!_ He’s _mine_.”

“He’s mine, actually,” Keris says. “Well, no. He’s his. But I was the one who made him and hang on, never mind whose he is, how in the _hells_ did he get in there? _I_ can’t get in there with my body! How did he?!”

“Mine!” Haneyl protests. “My pet made of _my_ pretty things and... Dulmea-grandmother! Tell _Keris_ that this is _my_ pet! Not hers!”

“What is this?” Dulmea asks.

Keris shrugs. “One of my serfs - you remember Firisutu? I... think he just worked out how to get into the Domain. By himself. Which... I mean, I can pass things in, but not _alive_ ones! Firisutu! How’d you do that?” She pauses. “And can you get out again, or am I going to have to ask Sasi to summon you back?”

There is the sound of Dulmea picking up the deva, over the noise of Haneyl whining that he’s hers and Keris is trying to steal _her_ pet from _her_. He chirrups as Dulmea strokes him with her hair. “I believe,” Dulmea says, thoughtfully, “it has found a way to squirm in and out of your inner world.” She pauses. “Much as some demons can escape from Malfeas,” she adds.

“Huh.” Keris purses her lips and holds her hair up. “Firisutu? That right? Can you get out again?”

The creature makes a smug chirrup. He sounds rather happier now that he’s presumably in Dulmea’s hair, rather than being grabbed by Haneyl. “Oh yeah?” Keris challenges, grinning. “Prove it, then! Let’s see you do it!”

Her hair is abruptly weighed down with another smug chirrup, and she raises her eyebrows, impressed.

“... well okay then. I guess you can do... it. Okay, but seriously, _how the hell?_ I can’t do that!” She mock-glares at the little creature. “I can’t even summon you from there! How are you doing it?”

“But you can reach in and out of that place to remove objects,” Dulmea says, and then coughs. “And, I would note, your inability to summon is entirely your fault. The szelkerub that Lady Sasimana summoned has been banished back here. I have seen her several times - she has taken to dressing entirely in white ribbons. She was apparently quite taken by Lady Sasimana.”

“... gonna get round to it when I can,” Keris mumbles, suddenly uninterested in this particular element of the conversation. “Well, you can definitely hide yourself from people,” she addresses Firisutu. “Haneyl... I know you like pretty things, sweetie, but Firisutu is helping me; you can’t claim him as a pet. Why don’t you make yourself some new pets of your own? Or have a tournament between your farisyya to decide who gets to go out and find you some treasure?”

“B-b-but I _want_ him,” Haneyl wails, as if this is an unstoppable objection.

((Oh, Keris. Arguing like this with Haneyl is, from a certain point of view, you fighting with your own greed.))

“Well...” Keris says slowly, thinking hard. Dulmea’s comment about demons escaping from Malfeas comes to mind - the most driven, the most skilled... the ones who would quite often become citizens.

But... calling Firisutu a serf, come to think of it... Keris doesn’t like thinking of him that way. She doesn’t want to have her deva be... be slaves, devoid of rights, helpless to do anything but cower before those greater than them. And she’s the strongest in her realm. She can decide how things work.

“... you might want him,” she says slowly, “but you know, he’s... not just a citizen.” She nods, speeding up as she firms her stance on the topic, her voice unconsciously taking on the timbre of a declaration. “All who live in my Domain are citizens - all that can think; that are more than beasts like the chell. And you, Haneyl, you and your brother and sister, you’re royalty, so you _can_ command citizens, as long as you don’t go against their rights. But Firisutu...”

She lifts the little monkey’s chin with a finger and smiles at him. “Firisutu is a very special deva. He is the very eldest of his kind - and the eldest of any of my deva to see Creation. Only a few of Echo’s szelkeruby are older. And they can’t slip in and out of the Domain, where he can. So he’s not just a citizen, he’s a _noble_. Firisutu Firstborn, I name him - and that means that while you’re still more important, _Princess_ Haneyl, you still have to show him the respect his station deserves.”

Keris pauses, while Haneyl seems to consider this. “Of course,” she adds to sweeten the deal, “it _would_ be perfectly natural for a princess to invite a noble to visit her court now and then. And you can sponsor citizens to join the nobility yourself, _if_ they’re worthy to be there.”

There is a sound which sounds a lot like Sasi tapping her fingers together - Haneyl has probably copied the gesture. “So they’d be the _best_ ones, these nobles?” she says considering things. “So that means they _have_ to be the best! Otherwise they’re not as good!”

“That’s right,” Keris says. “Nobles stand above the citizens, just like you stand above the nobles. Dulmea would easily have been a noble among angyalkae,” she adds, with a warm feeling directed at her mother. “Probably people would have been fighting to sponsor her.”

Dulmea doesn’t say a thing.

“I’ll go set up the tournament!” Haneyl declares, to the sound of bare feet running away.

Keris pauses in the relative silence, as Firisutu disappears back into her hair and Domain again.

“... Dulmea?” she asks tentatively, when nothing but harpstrings sound. “I... I thought... I didn’t want serfs in my soul. And this is fairer. Kinder, than the laws of the City.”

“It still obeys the Desert,” she adds softly. Defensively. “The strong do as they wish, right? Well... well I’m strong!” Her voice rises; challenging. “I’m strong, and this is what I wish to do! I wish to be... to be kind. To give my children and my creations a fair chance. I can do that. It’s my right.”

“It is your soul and it is your right,” Dulmea agrees. “And none of the Unquestionable have said you cannot, and... well, that might be more troublesome, but... perhaps it would be best if Orabilis were not to hear of it.”

Keris’s mouth twitches. “He won’t,” she promises. “How would he, anyway? Only Firisutu can get out at the moment, and he’s not going to talk. And Sasi won’t let him know either; she’s smarter than that.”

“I pray so,” Dulmea says, “... though to who I pray, I’m not sure.”

“Me?” Keris suggests cheekily. “Kidding, kidding! Oh, uh... by the way. I know Haneyl and Echo have been making horses, and Rathan seems to have come up with some sort of pearl-farming creatures from what I saw when I was moving the ships into the flooded city, but... I think I caught a glance at something that looked like an angyalka on one of the jetties when I was dumping the second one. Have you been making serfs as well?”

“A few,” Dulmea says in a guarded way. “I’ll speak of it later.”

“And I will definitely learn to summon over Calibration,” Keris promises. “Probably.”

The next day, Keris sets off from Dragon’s Teeth before the sun comes up. Sasi being wrapped around her body is, again, not the most comfortable experience in the world. Her Amulet-clothing is black to block out the sun and covers Sasi completely. Still, Keris is content enough.

Scything through the water, she happily snaps up a few fish as she heads up-river, humming quietly to herself as she swims. It’s always nice when she gets to go on a long swim. Seeing new places is fun! And there are always so many interesting sounds!

In contrast to Keris’s early-morning optimism, Sasi seems mostly intent on huddling under the darkest part of Keris’s dress that she can find and trying to either make herself or the morning cease existing.  She also turns out to have a tendency in common with Haneyl. They both ask Keris “Are we there yet?” repeatedly and often.

Despite the back-of-her-dress commentary, Keris makes good time to Adorned with Wisdom as a Sapphire, and is finally able to answer “ _yes_ , we are there now!” after a couple of hours - which would probably have been a lot less if there hadn’t been fifteen minutes of agonised circling as she tried to remember which fork of the river to take just after passing the scorched remains of an old pier. Stomping up onto the bank and sucking her hair dry, Keris lets Sasi flow out onto the ground and resume her human shape.

... well, _a_ human shape. It’s not the one she normally uses.

Keris looks Sasi’s assumed shape up and down. Tall, with golden skin and refined aristocratic features, as well as floppy dark hair pulled into a short ponytail - Keris has to admit that Sasi has clearly put a lot of effort into being as handsome as possible. And indeed, her male form isn’t pregnant.

“First Dream of the Fortunate Mangrove family,” Sasi says mockingly. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. I’m sorry, my lady, but I was meant to be meeting my friend here. Have you seen him?”

Keris grins and nods over Sasi’s shoulder. “Is that him?” she asks lightly. ‘First Dream’ gives her an eyeroll, but obligingly turns to check. When he turns back, a shorter man whose skin is a darker shade of bronze is standing there; auburn hair pulled into a simple, single braid that reaches his hips. His eyes are a deep grey, and wide in a way that gives his face the boyish innocence of a dreamer.

“Not sure why you’re looking for me over there, First Dream,” he says. “Did you think I was hiding in the trees?”

‘First Dream’ leans in and gives Keris a kiss on the lips. His neatly trimmed beard tickles her face. “I have no idea,” ‘he’ says. “Shall we head down to find some accommodation for the duration of our stay?”

Built on an island in the middle of the river, Adorned With Wisdom As A Sapphire is an old city. This proud city is full of contrasts, with First Age buildings surrounded by cheap modern housing and post-Usurpation ruins serving as basements to more modern halls and temples. The city was built with roads and alleys rather than canals and has, over time, become a tangled maze of streets.

There are many temples and places of learning rising above the general landscape, and the entire air is cheerful. The young adults here are usually wealthy, and it is the one time in their life where they are free of many of the expectations of the Tengese. To attend Sapphire is a way for the lowly born to make contacts and influence people that will ease their lives, while the highly born may act with less fear of social scandal - and they take ample chance for it. Of course, this city is so old that the lack of the usual social rules is in itself a social rule - and if more children are left on the altars of the Pale Mistress because an inconvenient pregnancy is declared to not have happened, that’s just part of life here.

Unsurprisingly for someone who’s fairly new there, Humble Root of the Amber Bell family has his head on a constant swivel as he gawps over the “gorgeous lines of the building, First Dream, just _look_ at them, and... oh, the way they’ve grown ivy up the columns - come on, please? Just give me three minutes to rough it out; I can do the rest from memory!”

His older, taller friend sighs heavily and waits for the initial frenzy of careful sighting down fingers and frantic scribbling to subside before confiscating the sketchbook and dragging him away.

First Dream swiftly and efficiently approaches a the house of a noble family which is presently unoccupied, and offers a signed letter to the servants who run the place. The two travellers are shown in and let through to their rooms, which are small but quite splendid. From the windows, they look down towards a temple of Jupiter - the goddess is said to favour this place of learning.

“It’s a perfectly normal fact of life here,” First Dream says casually. “Families who don’t have a child here at present will let other family’s children stay here, as part of the web of obligations. This should be quite satisfactory for us, yes?”

“Quite,” Humble Root agrees. “A lot more comfortable than striking camp in some crumbling ruins, too.”

“Now, from what I have gathered,” First Dream says, “Ledaal Norono can be found most days at the Library of Thrice Remembered Sorrows, where he teaches and also keeps his offices. I suggest we take the chance to clean up and prepare ourselves - as we see fit - and then we take some of your artwork and my questions and we pay him a visit. Our goal will be to get invited to one of his parties, so we can get in closer with him” First Dream taps his fingers together. “It might also be worth seeing if he is susceptible to any of your poisons,” he says, considering things. “Dear one, I believe I passed you some Buk Moi rice spirits to keep inside you. It’s a rather collectible vintage now - of course, I made it up myself. It would be a nice gift for him and we can see if the alcohol affects him.”

Humble Root roots around in the wide sleeve of his robe and produces first one, then two, and then three bottles, which he sets carefully on the table. “Best to keep them out now that we’re here,” he suggests. “So that they don’t get broken. Or stolen. Or drunken,” he adds with an exasperated look, “as a toast for a tournament for the nobility-to-be.”

He leans sits down and leans back in his chair, lowering his voice. “Though speaking of our little Orchid Dragon, would it be worth seeing if I could plant a seed in him as well?”

“He’s an Exalt,” First Dream says after some long thought. “Certainly not wearing this face. He may be immune to such a thing, considering his lifestyle. An alcohol gift isn’t a risk - but that thing? He might notice.”

“Hmm. We’ll see if the alcohol affects him,” Humble Root decides. “If it does... we can consider it then. If not, best not try.” He stretches. “So, this has been an exciting month. What have we got done?” Reclaiming his sketchbook with a pout, he starts flipping through it. “Where have we been recently that he’ll be interested in? Let me see...”

((Hmm. To what extent does their shared story involve poking around old ruins and actually going out in person and investigating remnants of Tengese history? Presumably at least some, since first-hand accounts and sketches are like candy to historians, and no cover is complete without a story that ends with “and then Red Mirror tripped down an old slag pile and woke up a giant angry elemental centipede, and then there was quite a lot of running away, and we never did manage to finish that tracing”.))  
((Well, you can basically devise the story you want and Sasi will lie to support it. She’ll find it harder to confirm some of the things if you want her to be there for them, but she’s a pretty good liar. By temperament she’s more of a reader and a socialite, as you well know))  
((Heh. Excellent. So moderate amounts of poking around in the field, with First Dream being the cautious one who sat out the muckier bits in the tent or stayed up in the entrance hall of a ruin and translated the carvings on the walls while Red Mirror and Humble Root poked around the cellars looking for surviving manuscripts or pottery fragments, etc. Red Mirror’s absence and their presence in the city... may well be explained with “um, well, we can’t really go out on digs anymore until his leg and rib have finished healing”.))

The pair spend the rest of the evening picking out the elements of Humble Root’s portfolio and First Dream’s notes and translations that Ledaal Norono is mostly likely to want to see. Sadly, the inked painting of the centipede is judged a little _too_ good for a mortal to have drawn, but the sketches are transferred across to another sheet of paper, along with a fragmented tracing of some of the glyphs from the plug of the Catalyst.

They’re less complete than the ones a woman named Keris gave to her lover to translate... but then, neither First Dream nor Humble Root have ever heard of either woman. They consider themselves lucky to have copied as much as they managed before having to hide and retreat from an angry spirit of the land.

Safer landscapes and maps or sketches of forest-swallowed ruins are there as well, along with fairly detailed notes; estimates of dates and regions, translations and cross-references to ruling families during this period or that. Some of the speculation and analysis is intentionally shaky and flawed, but overall it’s a solid accumulation of research.

“Shall we, then?” First Dream asks with an amused twist of his lips.

The two of them make their way through the narrow streets and twisting alleys until they find the library. It’s a First Age building, not even a Shogunate one, and even though the top of the tower block has broken off, it still rises impossibly with its fluted columns made of something which looks like opal. It’s been patched up with marble here and there, and the marble makes it look scabrous. There are gardens around it, and other academic buildings.

Keris, of course, has seen more impressive structures in Hell, but Humble Root hasn’t.

“Remember,” First Dream mutters, “I will be flirting with him shamelessly. Support me, but don’t try to monopolise his attention.”

Humble Root pouts at this, but agrees with a brave and noble air of self-sacrifice. “As long as I get as much or more shameless flirting later on,” he says reluctantly, “I suppose I’ll probably be able to keep from jumping in and... oh, wow.” He pauses, squinting across a courtyard and down a path. “Is that him? Wow. Okay, he... he really is quite pretty. Um.”

First Dream’s voice drops to a whisper. “Of course he is,” he says softly. “Any Dragonblooded who isn’t gorgeous has bad breeding and hasn’t put sufficient attention into their own personal care. And he comes from a well-established Ledaal family with several close kin with the dragons’ blood.” He shakes his head fractionally. “I sometimes forget you don’t know these things,” he says. “Apologies.”

Humble Root is - surprisingly - actually blushing a little as they approach the Prince of Earth, and clutching the leather folder of sketches a little tighter than is perhaps strictly necessary.

((Look, Keris hasn’t had any male bishies to ~uguu~ over since the whole Rat debacle. And she’s not even been ordered to kill this one. Yet.))

Ledaal Norono is gorgeous. There’s no other words for it, Keris thinks. Compared to Sasi’s normal appearance, his features are soft and graceful - he doesn’t have her strong jawline or her high cheekbones. It’s like he’s a beautiful flowing water-softened edifice, not Sasi’s statuesque beauty. And that’s not the only watery thing about him. His long hair flows down behind him, and he has a faint sheen to his tanned skin. He’s clean-shaven and wears Tengese clothes in a deep blue - and even wears black jade spectacles.

It’s not _fair_. The bits of him that she doesn’t want to _lick_ , she wants to steal!

... okay it’s mostly the pretty things he’s wearing that she wants to steal. But her point remains!

“Flvzzp,” she says intelligently, briefly forgetting what exactly it is that she’s meant to be doing or who it is that she’s meant to be. “Glrrk.”

Ledaal Norono gives the pair of young men a patient smile, apparently accustomed to this reaction.

((Sasi should probably open with saying words, because Keris isn’t going to be good for much until something snaps her out of it.))

First Dream takes the lead. “Respected Chosen of the Dragons,” he says with perfect Tengese manners, “Might these humble individuals respectfully request a moment of your time? We were directed towards you for your name emerged as the most informed and articulate member of this faculty on certain matters of the period before the Glorious First Empress.”

Sasi, naturally, is going right after his ego - as well as his attraction towards handsome young men flattering him. It works.

“I have some time to spend,” he says, offering his arm. “Though I must say you have me at an advantage.”

Sasi clears her throat. “First Dream of the Fortunate Mangrove family, respected one,” he says, “and this is Humble Root of the Amber Bell family. Our families fortunately give us the grace to pursue our own interests before we are married, and we have come across certain strange things in the wilds of An Teng.”

“Well, let us see what we can talk about,” he says, guiding the two of them through to one of the gardens on the sunwards side of the library, where opal reflections shine down on clear pools of water. “What do you have for me?”

“Ah, p... pictures!” Humble Root stutters, hastily fumbling with his folder. “Um, sketches. I sketch, I mean... I take sketches, and First Dream translates what we find, and... um...”

He shuts up, face glowing, and offers the folder over meekly; open on a monochrome inked landscape with several pencil sketches around it of the set of ruins it shows from different angles; some of them from inside.

((... keris r u learning Moe Artist Style?  
Well, anyway, roll Per + Pres + applicable styles for your impromptu and accidental seduction attempt))  
((whups. did i accidentally just a seduction? : P  
3+5+... damn, I think Cerulean Paramour might not actually be viable here. It says “confident and assertive”, and, well... yeah. Ah well, +2 stunt=10.  
... and 7 sux anyway. WELP.))  
((Look, he has a thing for shy, doe-like young men who seem to adore him on first sight. He isn’t going to bother to resist that 1 dot Principle of Humble Root (Very Fuckable).))  
((Hahaha.))  
((Well, Keris currently has a 1-dot of “~UGUU~”, so it’s probably fair.))

He gives Humble Root a knowing glance, and takes the papers from him with his elegant hands. “Oh my,” he says admiringly, angling the papers so he’s looking at the young man and the art at the same time. “Very nice indeed. I’m so glad to be able to take a look at such a beauty. And... my goodness. My goodness. I do believe you have my interest.” He gives Humble Root a twinkling smile.

((He got... uh. 13 successes on his 14 dice seduction pool, trying for a Principle of Adoring Attraction on Humble Root. What’s Keris’ MDV?))  
((... like, 6.))

Humble Root’s blush somehow manages to get even brighter, and he mumbles something only half-coherent. First Dream’s jaw, hanging half-open in disbelief, closes with a sharp click.

Sasi says some things. Keris isn’t quite sure what, because she’s currently in a warm and fuzzy space and Sasi doesn’t look like Sasi so she’s not as pretty as she is normally. But then he’s looking at Sasi with the same air of attraction as he was looking at Keris... at Humble Root.

“Oh, sir,” First Dream says with a giggle, “it is illegal for you to be so handsome and attractive. Would you like for us to come to your party? We’ll be there if you want us to be.”

Just for a moment Humble Root could claw First Dream’s eyes out for stealing his attention - and then Keris remembers herself. She takes a gulp of air, squeezing her eyes shut, and focuses on Sasi’s heartbeat for a moment. That helps her calm down a bit - quite a lot, in fact, because his voice (while very pretty) is not quite as pretty as his... everything else is.

He’s saying something else; answering First Dream. Both Keris and Humble Root are entirely in agreement that this is _vitally important information_ , and open their eyes to refocus on the conversation now that words make sense again and the urge to stab out the eyes of anyone who comes near either Sasi _or_ Ledaal Norono has faded. Somewhat. Ish.

“Of course, of course, I’d love such fine young men to be at my little soiree,” he says casually. “Would you mind if I keep a hold of these artworks at least until then? I’ll keep them in my personal quarters, in the safe I use to protect precious things. You can come to the party and collect them there - and perhaps I can show you some of the things I keep in my quarters?” he adds, with an innocent gleam in his eye as he glances at Humble Root.

This is, once again, something that Humble Root and Keris have no disagreement whatsoever on, though admittedly Keris is paying attention to rather more parts of the sentence than her cover identity would be. “I-I would like that very much, Honoured Prince of Earth,” she stammers, bowing.

“Wonderful,” he says, reaching out and carefully taking the folder from Humble Root - brushing his hand along the way - and tucking the work inside. He’s clearly used to taking good care of art, and Keris can’t help but feel that’s good. “Then,” he reaches into an inner pocket, “here,” he says, passing them each an invitation. “I keep a few spare on me in case I meet anyone I simply must have attend. Please, wear something nice - it’s not for the riff-raff.”

And with that said, he heads off clutching the folder close to him.

Silence reigns in the corridor for a while, until he’s passed completely out of sight. A little more passes as First Dream checks to make sure nobody is in earshot and Humble Root sighs quietly and happily, then the taller man rounds on the shorter.

“Did you hear?” Humble Root sighs again, before he can get the first word out. Clutching his hands to his heart, the doe-eyed young man swoons slightly. “ _Safe_.”

“I told y-” First Dream says, and is two and a half words in before he registers exactly which part of Ledaal Norono’s invitation his friend is apparently focusing on and pinches his nose with a sigh.

“Please don’t,” he says drily. “We need his help. And I’d like him as a tool. It might be an idea to take a look through, yes, but no stealing valuables.” He pauses. “Other places in this town, though - well, you might want to come back after Calibration. To study, of course,” he adds after a meaningful pause.

“Now. Back to our rooms. Shower, wash, get nice clothes. We have to reinforce the good impressions after the party, and,” he smiles, “if at least one of us isn’t in his bed by the end of the night, we know we have a rival for his attention.”


	28. Chapter 28

Ledaal Norono’s ‘little soiree’ is not very little, and Keris isn’t quite sure what a soiree is, but it seems to be a lot like a party. He has quite a sizeable house just outside the city, on the north banks, and the gardens overlook the gleaming towers of Sapphire.

Aware that she’s perhaps not quite as good an actor as she might want to be when infiltrating a Dragonblood’s home in disguise, she sticks close to Sasi, letting “Humble Root” defer to his smarter friend and playing the awkward and shy young man that caught Norono’s eye earlier to avoid having to talk too much.

The side-benefit of this is that she gets to watch First Dream mingling. And that’s an experience a lot more impressive than she thought it would be. Watching Sasi work is stunning for someone who has some idea of what she’s doing. Oh, Keris has known for ages that Sasi is as accomplished a socialite as she is a killer, but there’s a difference between knowing something and... well, having a front row seat to see it from. First Dream sparkles here. Literally. He has glitter stuck to his face and in his hair. And he just wanders through the place, going for the most influential and significant people and offering them things.

Often ‘Would you like a drink?’

“I can only do this so much,” he whispers to Humble Root. “Offerings like this really take it out of me. “The rest of the time, I just get by on natural talent. You, dear, might be able to let your talents shine in combat where you have no witnesses. That’s not an option for me.”

Humble Root squeezes his hand sympathetically and nods. Closing his eyes for a moment, he cocks his head and listens for Norono’s voice, tracking it through the crowd and the richly decorated rooms.  First Dream shakes his head. “No. Hold off for a little while,” he says with a smile and a soft tone. “Mingle just for a little more and avoid him. I need to find a place to hide and unleash the glimmerings of my soul to regain my strength after this.”

His apparent mind-reading earns him a vaguely suspicious look, but Humble Root shrugs and nods, concentrating a moment longer. “There are a few empty rooms on the first floor,” he says quietly. “Nobody seems to be doing anything in them - you can probably find one with a door that locks. I’ll point people towards the gardens if anyone asks.” First Dream nods, and slips away through the crowd. Humble Root now has some time to kill.

Mindful of Sasi’s instruction before they arrived, he keeps his hands to himself, even though it’s tempting - so very, very, _very_ tempting - to liberate some of the shiny beautiful things dangling from wrists and belts and earlobes from their owners.

... really tempting. Really, really tempting. Urgh. He wanders out into the gardens to get out of pickpocketing range and safeguard himself a little - and also because Norono is drifting closer to the room - and turns his attention to the quiet gossiping here and there that’s probably meant to be private and audible only to its intended recipients. And isn’t.

There are quite a few interesting conversations - and there would probably be several more if Humble Root actually knew who the people a lot of these people are gossiping about are.

But there’s something much more interesting he can hear now that he actually tries to filter things out. Over away from the main building, in one of the surrounding outhouses, Humble Root can make out the reedy whisper of immaterial voices. And they’re speaking in rather archaic Firetongue - well, at least some of them are. Others are speaking Old Realm or something which sounds a bit like High Realm.

Quietly, he drifts towards them, feigning - okay, not entirely feigning - interest in the flowerbeds and water features of the garden. He has, happily, had the foresight to bring his sketchbook, and busies himself getting down the precise curves of a lotus as he listens in as best he can.

The guards patrolling the gardens are easily flummoxed by Keris’ act of wide-eyed art-obsessive sketchingness. Apparently the master has quite a few guests who do that - and he is apparently rightly proud of his lotus collection. Few people in An Teng can grow him like that, especially the breeds he’s brought with him from the Realm.

As for the voices... well, they’re somewhat archaic, but some of them are begging to be released! Others are complaining or bored or they’re talking like prisoners who are trying to keep themselves amused, but they all pale beside the ones who are wailing for escape!

Interesting, thinks Humble Root as he finishes his fourth sketch, carefully shading in the subtle play of light and shadow over the petals and their creases. He snaps the book shut, looks up as if he’s only just become aware of where he is, glances around in mild confusion and heads back to the house.

There’s still no sign of First Dream reappearing, but when Humble Root listens up for where Ledaal Norono is, he’s talking to a woman with a notable Scavenger Lands accent. Not Nexan, though. Her frowns. Lookshyian, or one of their puppet states.

“... and I read your monograph on the late-era shift in Shogunate designs and the sacking of the Shore Lands - and their subsequent flooding,” the woman says brightly. “You seem to have skipped over the occupation by the forces of the Western Prelacy, though.”

Humble Root raises an eyebrow, suddenly absorbed in another flowerbed that he crouches down to examine as his eyes flash faintly green behind half-lowered lids. Ledaal Norono is himself. Air-aspected essence, and enlightenment far above that of a mortal man which is still dwarfed by Keris’ own.

((Air Aspected, Enlightenment 5))

The woman, though - Keris can hear through her pretence. There’s a thin shell of masking blandness which would leave most people fooled, but Keris can _hear_ it ring false. Underneath, she reeks of death - and she’s even more powerful than Keris.

((Necrotic aspected, Enlightenment 9))

Keris - and it’s very much Keris now; Humble Root no more than a distant memory - goes very, very still. For a moment, she seriously considers cutting the woman’s head off right here and right now. She could do it, she thinks. The woman seems to use her Dead creations for the fighting, and Keris is one of the deadliest things in Creation. She’s in disguise - oh, it would give away that the Yozis have a hand in the area, but not who, or where. Sasi is in the building, safe away from where the fighting would be.

((Rolling Temperance... 2 successes.  
... that’s probably for the best. I was a little nervous about how that would have gone. And yes I would totally have done it if I’d failed the roll. : D))

It’s only a brief moment. Attacking here would probably lead to Norono dying - Keris would definitely call on Echo for a fight with something stronger than her, and her Fifth Soul doesn’t discriminate in how she applies her violence. He’s their only lead. And the other people here are innocent, more or less. They don’t deserve to be driven mad by the Dead woman’s anima; to claw their own eyes out like people in Matasque did.

Of course, at some point the woman is going to leave. At that point, all bets are off. And if she makes the first move by attacking Norono... well, Keris is sure Sasi will understand. Unwilling to leave her alone with the Dragonblood for long enough to find Sasi and inform her of the sudden change to the status quo, Keris lurks nearby, sketching a few portraits absently and doing everything but stare obsessively at the two as she listens in on what they’re saying.

They’re talking about history, far beyond a level that Keris really understands or has experience with. Apparently the Shore Lands were at some point in the Late Shogunate attacked by their own forces, using some kind of magical weapon that killed a lot of the population and the deaths from that re-opened the shadowland over the old capitol.

Forces from the West then invaded and occupied the lands, until some form of mass flooding happened and the Shore Lands lost as much as two-thirds of their land area - which is why the land is so salty now, from the tsunami of the flooding.

They don’t talk at all about the royal crown, though. Maybe she wants the weapon, Keris thinks, chewing on her lip and wishing Sasi would hurry up and get back. Or to open the shadowland further. Or... oh, All-Makers only know. This kind of tension; the kind of quiet war waged in words and smiles and lies where you can’t just stab someone; this is _not her kind of thing_. She doesn’t like it. At all.

“Oh, there you are, Humble Root,” First Dream says casually. “I should have expected I’d find you near art. I’ve freshened up and I’m feeling much better. I don’t know what came over me. It’s rather hot in here, isn’t here? So many people.”

“First Dream!” Keris smiles through gritted teeth. “Oh, so good to see you, I found a beautiful lotus bed, here, let me show it to you...”

Grabbing Sasi by the arm, Keris physically drags her out of earshot of the crowd. There is no question of Sasi resisting. Keris is alarmingly strong for someone of her size, and a mortal’s arm would be sporting finger-shaped bruises for weeks from the pressure she exerts. The second Keris is satisfied she’s achieved a clear distance, she yanks Sasi down to look at a random flowerbed and whispers in her ear.

“ _It’s her!_ The Dead Exalt! It’s _her_ ; talking to him right now! She’s stronger than I am; as strong as _you_ are, she’s _right there_ , what do we _do?_ ”

Sasi’s eyes narrow. “How does she keep getting ahead of me?” she says softly, in the ice-cold way which suggests that Sasi is too angry for visible anger and has clamped right down or else she’d be breaking things telekinetically. “Are you sure? Could she be a fake given a false essence imprint to fool people looking for the real Dead one?”

“ _She is definitely not a fake_ ,” Keris hisses back. If she had her normal hair, it would be writhing like a nest of snakes. “There’s a layer on top hiding what she really is, but I heard what was underneath, it’s really her. Sa- First Dream, she seemed to use those Dead things; the ghosts didn’t say she fought herself. I can probably kill her now if we can get her alone. It wouldn’t be quiet, but I bet I could do it.”

She pauses. “Oh, and there are a bunch of old spirits trapped over in the outhouses that way. Lots of them are begging for release, and they’re speaking really old Firetongue and Old Realm and I think maybe High Realm. Either they’ve been there a while, or they’re really old, or both.”

“What kind of spirit?” Sasi asks, eyes narrowed.

“Not sure. All I got were immaterial voices - I can go back and find out if you think it’s important.”

“Hmm. Next question. Has she seen you? Have you interacted with her? You, dear one, cannot conceal your nature and your power properly.”

“... I don’t think she’s seen me, no,” Keris says, after a pause for thought. “I saw her first, and I’ve been keeping my distance and sketching people since. If she has noticed me, she hasn’t done anything about it. And I’ve been paying attention to her; I’d like to think I’d have caught some reaction if she’d realised what I am.”

Sasi purses her lips. “Well, we have a choice here,” she says softly in First Dream’s level baritone. “I can try to ensnare her - but I’ll want you here to protect me if needed. Or I fear that mysterious voices may be more Dead and you can see what they are exactly. Or... hmm, I can simply try to get him into bed and away from her. Any ideas from your part?”

Keris thinks. “He can wait,” she decides. “He’s not going anywhere. But if we get her now; if we kill her now, we win. She fights with her Dead, so... yeah, that’s probably what they are.” She cuts her eyes over to the chatting pair. “She doesn’t _look_ like she’s going to try anything with all these people around... okay, you stay here and keep an eye on them from a distance, you’re better at spotting any sneaky stuff she’s doing. I’ll go check what the voices are. If you really need me, scream. I’ll come here full speed and we can work out what to do next after everything’s dead.” She chews her lip. “Not sure I can kill them all if they’re Dead without going loud,” she admits. “I mean, if it looks like I can I’ll just do that, but it may not be possible.”

“Very well,” First Dream agrees. “I’ll save my strength. Stay safe, dear one.” First Dream kisses Humble Root. “I’m glad you’re here,” he says softly.

“Me too,” Keris replies, and dons Humble Root again like a cloak. Sketchbook in hand, and armed with a couple of coloured pencils that could plausibly have come from First Dream, he heads back to the lotuses; intent on getting down exactly the right shade for the petals before he leaves. His eyes flash green as he works, sampling the Essence of the voices in the outhouse. There are several in there. They’re all deathly, and all pathetically weak.

((Necrotic aspect, E1-3, mostly 1s and 2s.))

Humble Root chews his lip and slowly experiments with pencil shades, looking for the right ratio. He can probably disappear for a few minutes while the guards aren’t looking, especially if he leaves the sketchbook so it looks like he’s gone to get more pencils. And the Dead certainly won’t put up much of a fight. The question is whether they’ll put up enough of one to alert someone of their destruction. Like their mistress, standing a stone’s throw away and talking to their likely target.

((What Difficulty to sneak up and murder them all without anyone else - including them, until it’s too late - noticing and causing a ruckus?))  
((Keris isn’t sure - probably 6-9. However... Keris lacks the full information at the moment.))  
((... well that’s encouraging.))

Sighing, Humble Root frowns and shakes his head at the colours he has - none of them are _quite_ right. Looking up, he waits until none of the guards have him in their field of view, and then...

... isn’t there anymore. Nothing about the scene has changed, exactly. It’s just that where there was a young man sitting and looking forlornly at his sketchbook, there’s now a sketchbook sitting on the lip of the flowerbed, and... nobody there.

A few yards away, Keris Dulmeadokht quietly works her way through the plants of the garden, freezing whenever anyone looks in her direction. She can hear the things better now as she edges closer to the outhouse, and runs a quick headcount of their numbers.

Now that she gets closer, she can hear that they’re... very close together. Some of them are even closer than any humans can fit. Like they’re... stacked.

Keris thinks back to the engineered monstrosities of the shadowland, and a horrible suspicion takes hold of her. “Oh, no...” she mumbles under her breath. “No, no, no...”

Closing her eyes to concentrate better on her hearing, she tries to get a working image of the voices. There’s no air to move over them, no echoes to rebound off them... but even immaterial, they have form. Even a ghost’s body will still shift over itself, will still produce minute sounds as it moves - perhaps not the groan of muscle and the creak of tendons, but sounds nonetheless. If Keris concentrates really, _really_ hard and focuses all her attention on her target... she can hear them.

((Boosting my hearing to “hear the dance of least gods” level and paying 1wp to ignore the penalty for a scene. 14 dice, 7x2+4=18 sux.))  
((plz tell me it r not a single brute necromonster made of dozens of weak ones fused together.))

She can hear that... the ghosts are trapped inside pots? Clay pots, made of fine ceramic. And... there are empty pots in the same room? Ones without ghosts in. Well, she thinks. That’s interesting. Very interesting, actually. Slipping inside the outhouse, Keris blends into the walls and has a look around.

Keris is an old hand at sneaking into rich men’s houses. This is just like old times. She bypasses the traps with ease, even the rather sneaky one with the thin jade decapitation wire over the door into the private room, hidden behind a false wall.

What this place is is... well, it’s a study. A private study. One with lots of little neatly stacked ceramic pots in a rack, some books in the process of being written, some more books which are well-thumbed and old reference material, and... Keris sniffs.

The place smells of old dried blood. Just a hint.

This... this is not a group of Dead things waiting on the Dead Exalt’s command. This is, uh. Rather more worrying. Because either it’s Norono’s, in which case he has been doing some rather worrying things to do with ghosts and... whatever the books are on. Or it’s _not_ Norono’s, which is arguably more worrying, because it means someone is doing this on his property without his knowledge.

Neither prospect appeals. She has a quick look at the books to see if she can work out what’s being studied here. And... yeeeeep, Keris thinks as she flicks through books on the history of An Teng which are still in the process of being written. Looks like Norono has decided to interview some first-hand witnesses for his research.

Somehow. Because... uh, Keris doesn’t know much about necromancy, but she hasn’t heard of any Dragonblooded necromancers before.

She leaves the same way she enters and reappears as Humble Root just long enough to capture the right shade with a delighted look before rushing off to find Sasi again. Uh. First Dream, rather. This, thinks Keris, is why she is not cut out for this sort of work. Holding all these identities in her head is confusing!

First Dream gives Humble Root an inquisitive look when he shows up again, and the latter makes a beeline for him, opening his sketchbook and excitedly pointing to the lotus sketches.

“They’re not hers,” he whispers as the other man assesses the artwork. “They’re Norono’s. I think he’s been binding ghosts into these little clay pots to find out more about Tengese history. But... I don’t see how. He can’t be a necromancer, can he?”

Sasi purses her lips. “I have heard tale of them,” she says softly. “A few of them. They’re frightfully rare. Or he may have found a ghost-blooded who can do it for him - or he may just be risking with thaumaturgy and well-designed ghost-jars. I cannot say for now.”

“Well, it means we can move in now.” Keris smiles encouragingly. “Go see if you can snare her. I’ll be here if you need help. And then we can follow her when she leaves, get her somewhere it won’t matter if I go loud, and I can finish this.”

Sasi shakes her head. “She is no longer with him,” she says softly. “I lost track of her - but I fear she got what intel she was looking for, from her smile. Which worries me, because she did not seem to be asking about the crown - so does that mean she’s already found out where it is?”

Keris doesn’t register anything past “no longer with him”. Her eyes slam shut and her ears open wide as she pours every bit of focus she has into listening for any sign of the woman nearby.

She’s no longer in the area. Keris can’t hear her voice or her heartbeat.

Very quietly, ‘Humble Root’ says several very bad words that a young Tengese student has absolutely no business knowing, and which an awkward, blushing young artist would probably choke on if he was told what they meant. “You didn’t follow her?” he asks, and then immediately shakes his head. “No, stupid question; you’re not a fighter. Urgh! I should’ve stayed watching her. That was a perfect chance!”

“Perhaps,” Sasi says. “Or perhaps not.” Sasi frowns. “She may not even have been the same Dead Exalt as in Buk Moi. Stopping those goals may be more important.”

“... fair point. And you’ve got some good blackmail over him now, if you need it. You going to find out what she was asking him, and what we need to know?”

“If he’s interviewing the Dead,” Sasi says, considering things, “that might explain how he might know how the crown is. But... hmm. Yes. I feel we need to go entertain him and exhaust him. I can make him talkative, and failing that, that should get us into his private quarters and once he falls asleep, you can read his personal papers for any clues.”

Keris nods. “I’ll go ask him about his flowers. You really should see his lotuses, actually; they’re gorgeous.”

Humble Root finishes his quiet conversation with his friend and, in a gap where Ledaal Norono doesn’t seem to be particularly engaged in any conversations, shyly approaches him.

“It’s an honour to be here, Respected One,” he says nervously. “Um, if I might ask...” He shifts awkwardly, trying very hard to stay polite and deferential and not start babbling at high speed and demanding answers as he fairly clearly wants to, “... how did you grow your lotus beds so beautifully? I’ve never seen so many varieties, and the colours are...”

Gesturing vaguely at his sketchbook as it falls open on the most recent page, he runs out of words and trails off awkwardly.

((Per + Pres for the seduction,))  
((Sasi is also rolling that - 10 successes))  
((Who says Keris doesn’t just genuinely want to know about his flowers? : P  
3+5+BAH STILL CAN’T USE CERULEAN PARAMOUR+2 stunt+4 Kimmy ExSux {beauty, talent for temptation, secret lusts}=10.  
...  
... and, uh. I was expecting to need those ExSux to match Sasi, so, um. Dice fairies gonna troll. 11+4=15 sux. WELP.))  
((FOUR TENS))  
((THAT’S AS MANY AS THE NUMBER OF CAKES A LUNAR ONCE STOLE))  
((AND THAT’S TERRIBLE))

The two of them get to work on making him fall for them. And also pumping him for... information.

... Keris can just about hear Sasi’s tiny ‘harumph’ at the fact that it appears that he prefers the shy, artistic type. Because he seems more pliable in Humble Root’s hands, and it’s to him that he mentions that someone earlier today was asking a lot of questions about the history of Shadowlands in An Teng.

Meanwhile, Sasi plies him with alcohol and favours the entire party with a song as the candles grow dimmer and it gets dark outside. Keris always remembers afresh how much she loves Sasi’s voice when she sings, and now, as a man, it’s a wonderful baritone that Keris just wishes she could use as part of a harpwork.

And then comes the questions.

First Dream leans in. “Would you like me to take you to bed?” he asks huskily.

“I’d like that a lot,” Norono says.

“But what about poor Humble Root here? Wouldn’t you like him to come upstairs with you?”

“... that too,” Norono says, a drunken smile on his face.

First Dream looks confused for a moment. “Well, I suppose there’s only one way out of this,” he says, leaning in and kissing Humble Root so Norono can watch. “Would you like both of us?”

... Sasi, Keris decides, is utterly shameless with how she uses her cheaty favour trick which is far far cheatier than anything she does.

Nonetheless, the three of them retire upstairs together, and Humble Root gets a chance to sink his fingers into that silky mane of hair, as he’s been itching to do since he first saw it. And to do more besides.

It’s a productive night.

Keris stirs in the witching hour, feeling rather... unusual. It was definitely quite strange as a man and she’s aching quite a bit. She’s also feeling... urgh... from spending time wrapped up in her own shadow. She doesn’t like sleeping in it. How does Sasi stand it?

Sasi is, of course, awake - and whispering things into his sleeping ear. She turns to stare at Keris. “Time to do what you do best?” she says, with a smile. “Well, second best. We’ll need to do this again some time.”

Keris winks at her, slithers snakelike out of bed, and starts her tour of the room, gravitating first to the very expensive - which she admires briefly and then sadly puts back - and second to the very well secured. She finds that she’s getting increasingly annoyed with only having two manipulator limbs. How do people stand it?

Anyway, Norono has a very fine collection of all kinds of Tengese artwork and collectibles. It’s almost worth living as a man for a while as his toyboy if she just got to admire his art. There are Shogunate artworks, Tengese inkworks, sculptures - even an diamond hand with a dawn insignia on it.

... and that’s the things which aren’t in his safe. Which is in itself, a Shogunate artefact. Keris squats down in front of it, pursing her lips. An ear to the locked door and a few taps on the metal do not paint a terribly pretty picture for a prospective thief. The safe is lined with jadesteel. The lock is nearly impossible to force. There are no tumblers to pick, there are no clicks to listen to. There’s no dial, only the characters of the High Realm alphabet which light up when they’re touched. It is a marvel of a lost age.

... this would mean a lot more if Keris couldn’t hear the least gods sing when she presses the right symbols.

“Ba-a-ra-ca,” Keris whispers to herself as it swings open, revealing... well, books. And isn’t that interesting. The books in here are the ones he prizes more than his artworks. She raises an eyebrow at Sasi as she flips through them, and brings the pile over to the bed so that Sasi can have a look through the titles without moving away from what she’s doing.

Books start floating through the air around her as Sasi begins to truly multi-task. “Well, well,” she says softly. “What a naughty man he is. Quite a few of these books are forbidden books in the Realm. Mostly anathematical histories. Oh my. Pre-Immaculate Shogunate histories, too. He must have spent decades finding some of these ones. And... yes, folk tales of An Teng. That he keeps safe with the same kind of security he uses for books that could get him executed as an Anathema-slave. Well, well.”

Keris smiles a happy and joyful smile. “We’ve got him, then,” she says, pleased. “So what are we going to do with him?”

Sasi gives an innocent look. “We could fuck him,” she says with an utterly flat expression. “Again. And metaphorically.” She pauses. “But I think I might offer information on him to one of the Unquestionable with interests here, as a recruitment candidate.” She sighs. “Even if, yes, I’m admiring his books and you’re admiring his artwork.”

“It _is_ very good artwork,” Keris defends herself. “I might come back and pick it up if something happens to him.”

“Yes,” Sasi agrees, “and I haven’t even found copies of most of these books before. But for now, I’m just copying the folk tales,” she says, pulling a blank scroll out of her shadow and beginning to copy out the book on folk tales as fast as she can read it. “But these books...”

“There’s no stealing them, I guess,” Keris sighs. “Though. If you really want them, I might be able to get them later; after Calibration. I can get in here easily enough, after all, and get the safe open. Send me up with a demon to do the copying and I can get it done in a day or so while he’s not here.”

“Maybe. Now shhh. This takes effort,” Sasi says.

It in fact takes her nearly an hour. And then they have to try to put everything back where they found it. Exactly where they found it.

((Roll me Cognition + Subterfuge))  
((2+5+3 Silver Willow+2 stunt+7 Kimmy ExD {guile, keep secrets}=19. WHAT THE FUCK _4 successes?_ BULLSHIT.))

It’s a good thing that Keris is Dulmea’s daughter. It means she’s practiced - that she’s been _made_ to practice - at being unremarkable and unnoticed. At not disturbing anything unnecessary as she moves. At memorising where things are, and replacing them as though they’d never been touched, so as not to leave so much as a hint that she was ever there.

This is the first time she’s had to apply her skills in such high stakes, though.  Keris hopes it’s enough. Then it’s back to bed and trying to get enough sleep before the morning and Norono stirs.  They do their best, when he wakes, to distract him from any changes he might have missed by occupying his attention as he comes to. Occupying it all over the room, in fact. It’s a minor miracle that nothing is damaged.

((And he gets... 4 successes. Congratulations, you _barely_ squeaked it.))

Some of the things Humble Root has to do to distract him leaves a bad taste in his mouth, but that goes away after breakfast. And then First Dream and Humble Root are being nudged towards the door and being told they simply must get in touch and if Humble Root wants to talk more about lotus gardening, Norono will give him... personal tutoring.

Sasi harumphs once they’re out of hearing range.

“I don’t know,” Keris says impishly, leaning into her lover and the reassuring feeling of cuddling with someone she genuinely likes. “His gardens _were_ very well looked after. Maybe he can give me some tips.”

“I’m sure he’ll give you at least one tip,” Sasi says darkly. “Dear one, I am a little bit irked about how you were... handling him better than I was.”

((Sasi: “STUPID DICE ROLLS.”))

Keris shrugs. “Well, it meant you didn’t have to spend as much time handling him.” She cuddles Sasi tighter. “I don’t know how you do it so much,” she admits. “Killing is easy for me. Fun, even. Doing stuff like that, though; stuff you don’t like but which gets the job done or lets you finds out things that help your allies...” Her mouth twists. “I think maybe that’s braver than doing something easy that you enjoy.”

Sasi hugs back. “What we’re going to do today,” she says quietly, “is we’re going to find a private place out of this stupid too-bright sun and you can let down your disguise if you want and we can clean ourselves up and relax a bit. If these tales don’t have the information I need, we’re going to need to do something more drastic tonight, so we’ll need to be rested and ready.”

“Let me carry you again,” Keris offers, “and I’ll take us out into the bamboo jungle, clear a patch, and put my townhouse down. Then we can stay in there.”

“... we don’t have quite that much time,” Sasi says. “And we can’t risk leaving a mark of our presence here with that Dead Exalt around. No, we’ll just go back to our place and I’ll make sure none of the staff notice anything out of the ordinary.”

Keris pouts. “Fine, then. But promise me we can go out once we’re done here?”

“At the very least, we can do it in the new year,” Sasi says consolingly.

Keris brightens somewhat and nods. “Deal.”


	29. Chapter 29

Only walking slightly bow-leggedly, Keris and Sasi make their way back to their temporary accommodation and Sasi makes it entirely clear that they are not to be disturbed. After the necessary freshening up - in which Keris drops her shadow and thus literally lets her hair down - they sit to discuss their next move.

“So what’s in the old stories?” Keris asks, sprawling over Sasi’s lap and two thirds of the sofa. “And what did _she_ get from him that she wanted so bad? It wasn’t where the crown was.”

Sasi purses her lips. “I’m not entirely sure,” she says guardedly. “I think she might be gathering old stories, looking for clues and hints about anything she might be using. Maybe it confirmed her suspicions on something, or perhaps it gave her a new lead.”

((Sasi goes and rolls 13 successes on 15 dice for this that she just threw at the problem. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have enough information to make use of such a success properly.))

Keris chews a hair tendril thoughtfully. “Well, unless we hit a breakthrough, I guess heading her off isn’t going to work.” She scowls. “My fault. I went off chasing ghosts instead of just following her out and tackling her and whatever monster she might have at the same time. I could’ve done it - _should’ve_ done it, instead of letting her get away.”

Sasi shakes her head. “No. I don’t think violence at the party would have been a good idea. There are too many influential people, and deaths here would have bought the Order and the Maiden’s lackeys on us.”

“Not _at_ the party,” Keris agrees. “But after? No way she could have outpaced me - or lost me, or noticed me following. Then once she was a fair distance away...” She kicks the arm of the sofa sullenly. “Stupid stupid stupid.”

Squeezing Keris’ arm, Sasi seems remarkably calm about this set-back. “What’s done is done,” she says, “and at least this way we know one of her disguises and something of what she’s up to.” She’s flipping through her copies of the books, which float around her in lazy circular orbits. “And I don’t think she knows that we’re in play.”

The younger woman grudgingly accepts this logic. “Fine,” she mutters. “Though... actually, that’s a point. She’s got a disguise. And an identity. I know how you got set up here - how’d she? And might she have Dead things in places like... like the ambassador did?”

“This is the obvious place in An Teng to come for knowledge,” Sasi says, narrowing her eyes. “And that accent - Lookshyian, I think?”

“Yeah, definitely. Not rank-and-file, either; too crisp. I don’t see why she’d be faking it, so... that’s probably where she’s from? Can we use that?”

“Well, there can’t be too many Lookshyians here,” Sasi says, lifting her eyes from the book.

Keris grins, sharp and full of dark promise. “Okay. So what about him. Anything in the stuff you copied?”

“One thing,” Sasi says, tapping her fingers. “There’s an interesting folk tale here. It says that the last High Queen of An Teng tried to flee the city under disguise, rather than fight to the last against the Terrestrial host - which her honour would have demanded. It claims her cowardice led her to a bad end, and she and her retainers were slain by one honourable man disgusted by what she had done. It’s quite... obscure, but it implies that the reason no one has found the regalia in the heart of the City of Dead Flowers is that they are not, in fact, actually there.”

Keris’s eyes climb as her mind races. “It’d explain why they’ve never been found... does it say anything about the guy who did it? I’m guessing it doesn’t say where, but who?”

“These are folk tales, Keris - and I’m drawing conclusions here,” she says, shaking her head. “It doesn’t say it’s the High Queen specifically - it just says that a ‘greedy and cowardly woman of high birth’ fled the Dragonblooded host as they ‘purged the traitors who had forsaken the Golden Lord for the Pale Mistress’. It’s mostly here as a tale praising the honest man who slew his friends and compatriots for their cowardice, and then killed himself.” Sasi rolls her eyes. “The Tengese like this kind of story.

“But,” she continues, “if we look at where it’s from, the story is from the west of the City of Dead Flowers and... pass me your early Shogunate map, dear.”

Keris fetches it from within her soul.

“Yes,” Sasi continues, “I thought so. The dry river blocked by the city of Dead Flowers now _isn’t the same river_ as there was there in Shogunate times. That river bent further south. So I’m thinking that people who followed this tale before were looking for the wrong river.”

“So we could get ahead of them!” Keris says, warming to the concept. “Since we know where it really was! We’d just have to-”

Silence falls.

“... uh. Go look for the right place... near the shadowland,” she finishes, sounding a lot less excited.

Sasi smiles. “You forget one thing, dear one,” she says smugly. “I can feel things within forty or so yards of me. This is a sphere. It goes up and down. Did you know this building is built on High First Age ruins? I do. I can feel them.”

Keris stares at her for a moment, then pouts. “... so learning how to do that,” she mutters. “When I find the time. And somewhere to learn it from.”

“Even if we don’t find the regalia in particular,” Sasi says, “we may find something of interest along the course of the old river. Of course, we will no doubt have to find the old river too. It is likely it will be gone entirely on the surface. But the tale says that they were on a yacht and the ‘honourable man’ murdered everyone onboard and sunk the vessel, so we can at least inspect the course of the riverbed.” She pats Keris with an invisible hand. “During daylight hours, if you wish.”

“... there could be swimming,” Keris offers, persuaded despite herself. “Oh, and if she was running, there was probably other stuff on the yacht! Expensive stuff!” A brief pause. “I get half,” she adds quickly. “Especially if I find it first.”

Thinking it over once more, she nods. “This sounds good, yeah. When do we leave?”

“Soon, I think,” Sasi says. “We must assume she knows this too. I’ll need some time to spread our cover story - a family emergency, a sick mother. Say... we leave at the third hour after noon? Some time for you to get things done too. Not too long, but I’m sure you can be productive with five or so hours.”

Keris hums thoughtfully and nods. “I’ll find something to fill the time with.”

There isn’t much in Prosperous Garden that Keris is actually interested in doing - at least, not anything that she can accomplish in only five hours. She does spend some time wandering around and sketching, but that’s cut off halfway through when Rathan throws a hysterical tantrum and starts a caustic monsoon, sparking violent objections from both of his sisters. By the time Sasi returns, Keris has been cried on, complained at both silently and verbally, suffered a disapproving look from Dulmea and been bitten on the finger surprisingly hard by her son. Who is apparently teething. It turns out “pearly whites” is not just a metaphor with him.

Joy.

It’s something of a relief, once Sasi is settled on her in shadow-form, to have a nice mindless swim back down towards the City of the Steel Lotus, climbing out where it bends around the City of Dead Flowers and skirting the shadowland by a wide margin. With Sasi extending her phantom fingers, Keris crisscrosses the land at a slightly-slower but still blindingly quick pace, searching for the signs of a sunken river.

The terrain here is... well, Keris isn’t much of a farmer, but she’s pretty sure it’s not good terrain. It’s salty and swampy in the lower areas, and its salty and grassy in the higher areas. The difference between here and the Middle Lands is painfully obvious.

Under the cover of some trees, Sasi reassumes human form. “I need my eyes,” she tells Keris. “And... well, dear, you aren’t the best navigator.” She shakes her head. “There used to be rivers running here from the east, and they’d carry away the salt - but the Dead Flowers shadowland has been expanding and that’s shifted the course of the river further, so this area is just fed by salty groundwater now. Mangroves and salt grass are about all that can survive.”

“I like the mangroves,” Keris protests, patting the sprawling roots of a nearby tree. “They’re pretty.”

“Salty soil is nearly worthless for rice growth,” Sasi explains.

“... ah,” Keris realises. “And that means no food, huh? Yeah, that’s bad.” She pats the mangrove root again, reassuring the tree. “I still love you anyway,” she tells it.

She stretches, shaking her head. “So, the river?”

“Maps?” Maps are provided. “Thank you. Now, let’s clarify where we are right now.”

As it turns out, they are not exactly where they want to be.

“We need to go further south,” Sasi commands. She sighs. “This would be easier at night. I could navigate for you, too.”

It’s almost an hour later when Sasi finally manages to find the long forgotten river. It’s almost luck. The old channel has shifted many times since then, and it’s flooded and swampy here. The soil is waterlogged. What allows her to find it is the detritus at the bottom of the old river channel, buried under stagnant salt-saturated soil.

Keris pokes at it as if it has done her some great personal offense. “This,” she opines, “is not a river. Rivers - _proper_ rivers - are things you can swim in. They have fish. And currents. And little plants.”

She kicks a rock. It squelches.

“ _This_ ,” she declares, nose wrinkled imperiously, “is just _mud_.”

Sasi sighs. “Keris,” she reminds her, “the river flowed here over a thousand years ago. Before the Great Contagion and the Great Invasion.”

Keris pouts at it and kicks another rock. “And then it died and turned into a long streak of mud,” she mutters. In deference to Sasi’s sigh, she does so under her breath. Aloud, she makes a vaguely affirmative noise. “Okay, so we just follow it down while you do your...” she waggles several hair tendrils vaguely, “... ghost-hand poking thing at the bottom?”

“No,” Sasi contradicts her. “First we follow it up. _Then_ we follow it down.” Sasi looks up. “Oh wonderful,” she adds bitterly, checking the west. “We have a storm coming in. Remember which of us cares more about being muddy.” She slumps down. “I’m going to not enjoy these next few days,” she says. “But I need my eyes, so you can’t carry me.”

((... hmm.  
Rolling “Possessiveness (4 dots)”: 5 sux.  
Rolling “Sasi (4 dots)”: 4 sux.  
... sorry Sasi. Just barely missed out on Keris offering you her Amulet again.))

Keris shifts a little, chewing on her lip for a moment, then links arms with Sasi and spreads a curtain of hair above her, eyeing it to judge how best to keep the rain off. “I’ll just have to do my best to keep you warm and dry, then,” she says lightly.

Sasi sighs. “Well,” she says miserably. “Time to get started.” She pauses. “Unless one of your souls has made a horse-demon who doesn’t mind swamps?” she tries hopefully.

Keris stops. Thinks.

Grins.

“Actually...” she says, giving her Seventh Soul a mental nudge. “Haneyl, sweetie? Would you like to help me make a present for your mother?”

Four hours later, a seed has been planted, watered and ritually grown into a horse with hide the same greyish-brown colour as the bark of the mangroves around them. It’s enormous; standing almost as tall as Keris as the shoulder, and carefully lowers itself to one knee in a surprisingly elegant bow to Sasi.

“This really is a masterly horse,” Sasi observes, smiling. “A warhorse by shape, and that’s even before the fact that it is a demon comes into play.”

Unfortunately, it’s now twilight.

“Are we going to be able to keep moving in the dark?” Keris asks.

“I’m not using my eyes to follow the riverbed,” Sasi says. “Can the horse operate at night?”

Keris raises an eyebrow at the horse, which bows again. “I can see enough to carry you, my lady,” it offers.

Keris eyes it warily, remembering certain traits of Haneyl-things. “No trying to infect her,” she orders. “Or else.”

“Great One,” the demon tells Keris in a shocked voice, “I could not even think to do this great lady harm. My nature is to hers as a candleflame is to the very sun. Even if mine creator had not forbade me to do so, I could no more harm her than I could run on thin air.”

Sasi smiles thinly. “It is a demon of the first circle,” she says. “It is of no concern to me.”

“... well okay then,” Keris concedes, mollified. Her mouth twitches. “Though Echo actually has made horses that run on thin air. In that case, Sasi?” Three hair tendrils reach out, gently taking Sasi by the hips and thighs and lifting her in one quick and easy motion up to sit side-saddle on the farisy before she can protest. “Shall we?”

The demon is strong and it’s fast, and it easily makes its way through the swamp as easily as a normal horse might go through a field. Over the sound of the horse and Sasi’s small noises as she guides the steed with quiet words and mutters to herself about what she’s finding, Keris hears voices grow louder and louder ahead of them It sounds like men in a camp, doing the things men do when they’re heading off to bed and-slash-or drinking. And the grumbling, of course, of men who’ve just got off a hard day’s work.

And then there are the other noises. The ones where there aren’t any talking people, and there’s just the sound of digging and squelching.

... no breathing, either, Keris realises. Silently, her hair whips out to halt the pair. Barely have they stopped moving when Keris shoots forward, low to the ground, Ascending Air appearing in her hands with a flicker of red light. She’s entirely silent as she moves through the trees; making a quick pass outside mortal hearing range or sightline to get more information before circling back to Sasi with her findings.

Keris can hear forty nine humans breathing in the camp. It’s harder to hear the dead - if they’re not moving, she couldn’t tell they’re there that easily, but she estimates there’s maybe twice the number of Dead there. Most of them aren’t talking, but a few are giving orders - it sounds like those Dead are commanding what the probably-more-stupid ones are doing. She can hear the maggots in them. Dumb rotting Dead, probably. The talking ones don’t have maggots.

And there’s something odd sounding about the pit. There’s metal in there and bone.

“She’s still ahead of us,” she whispers to Sasi when she gets back. “About fifty humans, maybe a hundred Dead in a dig site over that way.” She points. “Most of the Dead are just dumb shufflers. They’re digging up something - maybe another mass grave. Shall I get rid of them all?”

Sasi tilts her head. Considers it. “Do you think you can do it silently?” she asks. “If you don’t think you can, I have a... ah, somewhat louder way of doing things.”

Keris considers. “If I’m quick... a few of them might get out some noise, but not much. And the shufflers won’t think to make much sound, and they’re most of what’s there. I’ll probably be faster at putting them all down, too.”

“Well, it’s dark,” Sasi says with a smile. She slips off the horse. “I think I’ll just take a look around myself,” she says, melting away into shadow and utterly vanishing from all of Keris’ senses.

“Stay out of the camp while I’m working,” Keris calls after her softly. “Echo hits everything nearby.”

Her only response is a quiet breath of laughter that even Keris’s ears can’t quite place. She huffs exasperatedly.

“That trick is unfair,” she complains to the world at large. “You stay here and wait for her to get back,” she adds to the farisy. “If you hear her yell, go trample whatever’s threatening her, unless I get there first. Kill anything with fire.”

The bone-porcelain blades of Ascending Air spin through practiced arcs in her hands.

“I need to go take care of something in the meantime.”

((What’s the Diff for the camp?))  
((People are still awake, because it’s only about two hours post sunset, but everyone’s sleepy and some people are drunk. Diff 4.))

The camp is in no way prepared for an Exalt hitting it. Let alone an Exalt like Keris. One moment there’s nothing. The next, a dozen or more people are dead or dying before anyone has realised what’s happening. Screams are stifled in throats; emerging soundlessly as Echo dances and whirls with miniature copies of the seven-wave krises. She’s enjoying herself. Keris usually favours her Lance for mass killing.

Bare seconds after the slaughter begins, it’s over. Keris stands alone in the empty camp, breathing in a stream of red and white ribbons, a green circle of fire on her forehead.

The people here weren’t much. Common workers, maybe even misbegotten day labourers. Still, they all die easily enough.

Keris edges closer to the pit. It’s dug into the side of the hill here, and the closer Keris looks, she sees that the hill isn’t just made of soil. It’s a trash heap from a forgotten civilisation, dumped here. At least it means things are a little drier.

But that’s not what draws her attention. What grabs her attention is the thing made of iron-covered bones which towers over the lesser dead. It’s as tall as a building and has vast scoop-like hands - and strange sucking tendrils made of rotten flesh and intestine which it’s using to keep the soil dry. It’s been layered down in swathings of chainmail - it must weigh incredible amounts. The lesser Dead swarm around it, moving the spoil it scoops out away. It seems to only just be waking up - presumably in the day it sleeps in one of the several pits which litter the nearby hillsides, covered with sailcloth.

But... uh, that’s a thing. And Keris stares at it, eyes wide. Green flares in her pupils. And she feels the much more powerful rot - still weaker than her, of course - and the deathly creeping power in the giant contraption made of river dragon bones coated in iron and other such things.

((Enlightenment 6, necrotic essence))  
((... well fuck.))  
(( : D ))

Drawing back, Keris looks around at the shadows and swears under her breath. “Sasi,” she hisses. “If you’re seeing this; I can kill it, but I can’t do it quietly.”

“That’s... that is certainly a thing,” Sasi says quietly, appearing behind Keris and wrapping shadowy arms around her in a hug. Keris isn’t sure who the hug is for.

“Our friend really likes her constructs,” Keris growls. “I’m starting to get fond of smashing them. I can take it down - and it’s big enough that it’ll probably squash a lot of the smaller ones trying to hit me. But it won’t exactly be quiet. Unless you’ve got a better idea?”

“I think I can help you,” Sasi says, considering things. “I’m just thinking of which spell to use on it.” She takes a breath. “I can turn all metal in an area into stinging insects by invoking the right power,” she says. “It won’t be subtle, and I’m not sure whether the Greater Dead in there will be able to continue without it, but it’ll destroy its armour and possibly its structure, and fill the area with hungry insects. You should be fine as long as you keep moving.”

“Or... hmm. There are other spells which might help.” Sasi sighs. “If you’d delayed your attack until I’d finished scouting like I asked you to, _dear one_ , we could have waited until day when the Dead were asleep.”

“I was expecting to get ‘em all in one sweep!” Keris defends herself. “I wasn’t expectin’ _that!_ ” She shakes her head. “The insect spell should work; means I’ll just be fighting a nasty ghost instead of a lumbering monster. Just stay far back. And on the horse. If our fight spills out of the dig site, get out of here and I’ll catch up later.”

Sasi nods. “Give me some time to prepare, and I’ll be ready,” she says. Crouching at the edge of the dig site, Keris watches with wary eyes and waits for the signal.


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New hack introduced: Tick system discarded entirely; all actions are Speed 5, Join Battle becomes Initiative.

The giant thing - taller than a building - works away. It’s clearly moving onto another step after removing the topsoil with its feeding hands, and so it’s picked up a spade suitable for its size. They must have used a tree for the trunk - indeed, Keris can see the knotwood. It hews away at the earth, breaking it up - so it can eat the earth later, she guesses.

((... damn. Hmm. Putting my moonsilver armour _on_ only takes 30 seconds, which I easily have time for, but... how long does attuning take?))  
((20 minutes of handling, according to the core. I will also point out that you'd be in a much better position if you hadn't rushed in to murder all the mortals. And so will, passive-aggressively, Sasi.))  
((Yes yes, I know. Hush, you. Fine, I guess we'll move forward with this as we are, then.))  
((You can certainly risk waiting 20 minutes))

Keris purses her lips and discards Ascending Air in favour of her spear. This thing is big. She’s going to need all the range and force she can get. In fact...

“Sasi,” she hisses quietly. “Hold up a moment.” A flurry of hair and movement, and what looks like a water-tarnished silver golem stands in front of Keris; swirling coral and nautilus patterns etched into the metal that cause queasiness if stared at for too long. Keris plucks the Amulet from her throat, her clothes dissolving into the air, and gestures. The golem-thing unfolds like a flower, letting her step nude into it. Her hair passes through the liquid metal back of the helmet, emerging as ten thousand shimmering silver strands.

Keris herself is nowhere near as beautiful or elegant as the armour closes around her. She steps forward, trips over a root and falls face-first into the mud with a thankfully-quiet splat. Muffled cursing emanates from ground level, until she rolls over.

“... like I was saying,” she growls from behind the faceplate; smooth, blank and unornamented save for a single roughly etched circle. “Let me work the stiffness out of this thing before we attack. I’m not planning on getting hit, but I’d rather have something between me and it in case it’s faster than it looks.”

“Just as well,” the creeping shadow of Sasimana says from somewhere behind Keris. “The armour it wears is made of labyrinthine ore. I will not be able to turn it into wasps.” Sasi flows into Keris’ field of vision. She straightens up, her pillar of darkness forming into something very nearly shaped like a woman - and a woman holding a bow, at that. “So there’s a lesser spell I’ll use. It’s not as effective, but it should help.”

Keris levers herself upright and sighs. The brand of green fire on her forehead seems to burn through the faceplate; hovering just above the silver as she begins to pace back and forth, working the stiffness out of the armour and attuning it to her movements.

“I’ll be maybe a quarter of an hour with this,” she sighs, leaning on her spear to stop herself from falling over again. “Don’t rush.”

“I’ll just take a closer look,” Sasi says. “Don’t worry. The Dead aren’t using torches. They won’t see me.”

Strangely, this does not noticeably calm Keris’s fears about her not-really-much-of-a-fighter lover waltzing into a mining pit full of Dead things and a powerful necrotic spirit-monster while Keris cannot protect her. “Sasi!” she hisses. “Sasi, that thing might be able to sense you! Stop! Sasi!” She lunges after a moving shadow and comprehensively fails to so much as touch it, still slowed by the armour. “Argh!”

And like that, Sasi is gone. Keris concludes that Sasi must be confident that she’s safe, given she’s normally... well... um... okay, Sasi is sort of a coward. Which is completely fine because she’s not a fighter and stuff, but still.

When she returns, Keris is feeling a bit more limber, but the armour still is probably feeling neglected because the demon in it that takes the place of its least god... oh. Probably hasn’t had anything to do in... um. Quite a long time.

“I’m back,” Sasi says softly from in front of Keris, oozing around her in a hug.

“You’re not hurt?” Keris spins around, dropping the rabbit and charred stick with which she’d been attempting to make an impromptu burnt offering to her armour’s demonic spirit. “They didn’t notice you? You’re safe?”

((... can I actually roll to make a sort of charred offering to my armour?))  
((Yes, you can. A successful prayer roll shaves time off.))  
((Yesss. Per+Exp=3+5+1 Spirit-Charming Supplicant+2 stunt=11. 4 sux.))  
((Keris shaves 4 minutes off.))

“It was dark, and I am a creature of the dark,” Sasi says smugly. She clears her throat. “Now, as to the location itself, we are in some luck. They have not found the site itself - but I have. They’re not far. Looking at their progress, they’d probably find it in the next few days.”

“So we need to stop them tonight,” Keris nods. “And then summon a hopping puppeteer or something if we need the rest dug up?”

“Indeed,” Sasi says. “I’ll get prepared. You’ll know when to start. So will everyone else.”

And like that she’s gone.

((Physique + Subterfuge for Keris to get into position, newly clad in her armour - and... heh, her anima banner has gone back down while she attuned))

Her armour is mostly working now - Keris suspects the sacrificial rabbit helped, even if it wasn’t quite as good an offering as it could have been - and the demonic spirit within is snarling happily at the thought of the upcoming slaughter. Thus, it is with only the occasional muffled curse word that Keris slips through the trees; keeping to the shadows where there’s no light to reflect in telltale glints off her silver garb.

((5+5+3 Silver Willow+1 bonus {going unnoticed by targets or guards}+2 stunt=16. 6 sux.))  
((... so, uh, one of the mook hungry ghosts bound into a body managed to get 7 successes on 7 dice.))

It is precisely then when the moon, treacherously and inconsiderately, decides to come out from behind the cloud. It is just a tiny sliver, and doesn’t provide much light.

... but unfortunately, as it’s this close to new moon that means the Dead are much, much smarter. And a snuffling, animalistic corpse wearing an iron collar whose eyes glow a faint red looks _directly_ at Keris just as the moonlight gleams off her armour.

It raises its head to the sky, and screams like a dying man. More screams sound out from the swamp.

“... oh for the love of...” Keris mutters. “Really? _Really?_ ” A slingshot whips forward fast enough that the air cracks, and the Dead thing’s skull crumples inward, but it’s too late to stop the outcry.  
“Fine then!” she yells back. “You want me, you got me!”

A bloody crimson whirlwind explodes out of the treeline around a silver demon, and the Dead begin, once more, to die.

((So, what’s her tactics going to be for this encounter? Geographically the terrain is that we have the dig area, which is over a landscape covered in Shogunate rubbish which now forms hills. They’re digging into the side of the hill, which is where the big thing and most of the shambler labour is. At the bottom of the slope is the swamp. The entire area is swampy terrain with a lot of salt on the land, so there’s marsh grasses and sea grass on the hills and low, scrubby trees. I assumed she was trying to stick to the treeline around the edge of the hill.))

For the first five or six seconds, Keris operates on the fairly simple plan of “kill everything”; taking out her frustration at being spotted on the shambling dead that are still howling to the sliver-thin crescent moon. She can hear the angry notes in Dulmea’s music that promise a lecture about this slip-up from her mother _as well_ as the exasperated sigh she’s no doubt going to get from Sasi and uuurgh, this is all _their_ fault, die die die die die!

... but once the initial surge of anger has been exhausted in the form of a dozen or so corpses turned into finely sliced piles of rotting meat scattered across the hillside, she realises that she’s going to have to act smart about this. Sasi hasn’t cast her spell hasn’t happened yet, and that’ll probably be aimed at the big one. So instead of approaching it on the attack, Keris grits her teeth, plugs her ears and gets _louder_.

“Hey, rotbrain!” she yells, snatching up a screaming shambler with her hair. Running full-tilt downhill at the monster, she digs her heels in and _whips_ her hair, transferring every jot of momentum she has to the corpse. The throw sends it flying bodily at the monster’s head with enough force that Keris is actually sent backwards, and the impact certainly seems to get its attention. She kinks right across the slope, heading for more of the workers without getting too close. She can’t move in until Sasi fires, but she _can_ kill as many of its minions as possible - and keep it distracted enough that it won’t notice Sasi lighting up to shoot it.

The ballistic body slams into its head, and it staggers back momentarily. Its head turns on its torso like an owl’s, and its hollow eye sockets light up a pale corpse green. Moving like a puppet, the giant thing turns towards the direction the body came from.

“Kill it!” it booms in a painfully loud voice which hurts Keris’ ears. There’s metal in there, and it sounds like someone is shouting into a cave. It echoes. “Kill it!”

And now Keris’s job is even simpler! It can be summarised as “don’t die”.

... this is less cause for comfort than it should be, really. Oh well. She keeps moving, half-circling the thing and scything through its minions. “Any time, Sasi!” she hisses frantically to herself as she calls Echo to aid her in the slaughter. “Sooner would be better!”

A light flares on the top of the hillside. It’s a brilliant blue-white pillar shot through with dark veins. Keris can see there’s just another dark vein in the centre. Circles form in the air, one after another, written in thin air and made out of burning Old Realm characters. A cloud comes spewing out of them.

And then up in the sky, Keris see the gleaming, shining cloud of blue glass butterflies coming down en mass. It’s centred on the main body of the Dead, and some are almost as large as Keris is tall.

The noise as they hit and shatter is horrific.

The falling blue glass butterflies smash down into the giant like rain, sending it staggering and screaming. Its head is shredded by glass cutting through the metal and puncturing the skull can. Glowing green leech-like vapours howl as they seep out of the head. Its right arm was facing her and it takes the brunt of the falling glass. It drops the shovel as its right arm is nearly severed at the shoulder.

It’s still alive. Uh, well, not alive alive, and the voice coming from it sounds _pissed_ as it screams in rage. More rage than hurt, too.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Keris can hear the sound of Haneyl making a high-pitched noise of disbelieving glee. Echo is laughing hysterically. Even Rathan feels impressed, and applauds clumsily. Her hearing is dominated, though, by the thrumming demand of Dulmea’s music, surging up and pushing her onward when she really wants to stop and gape at Sasi’s display of power.

Her lover might not be a fighter, but she’s anything but harmless. Keris is _so proud_. And not a little turned on. But she has a job to do. Now she rushes forward, lashing out as she leaps at the monster from its crippled right side, bringing her spear round to attack its torso and give herself leverage to springboarding up and over it and out of its reach.

Her eyes narrow as she approaches, though. She thinks she knows what this thing is. This body is like... sort of like a hellstrider, and sort of like a golem. It’s a vessel made of iron and bone and... and creepy underworld things which the Dead thing inside animates. So the iron monster giant isn’t really the Dead. It’s just something it’s wearing. But because Sasi has destroyed the head, the inner thing is... revealed slash escaping slash whatever. That’s what the glow is, probably - the hidden ghost monster.

She shifts her aim as she lands on its arm, stabbing up at the escaping light with the familiar frame of mind that lets her hit things that aren’t solid. She’s not sure whether the poison that coats her spear will work on a ghost-thing, but she knows she can make it bleed.

Keris vaults up its front and drives her lance through its wailing weeping leech-like mouth. Ectoplasm goes everywhere, splattering her and the surroundings with glowing green ichor. The Dead thing staggers back and falls. Keris rides it down.

And Echo is coming up right behind her.

It seems as though Keris’s Fifth Soul has recruited her sister’s help. Green fire blossoms from half a dozen different spots on the vast carcass as she spins and wheels and slashes. The right arm comes off completely in a gout of flame and red wind, crushing a burning, screaming shambler as it crashes to the ground. Behind them, those Dead not impaled on crystal branches like those cocktail sticks Sasi likes are either on fire, in pieces or both.

Somewhere behind her, Keris hears the zip of arrows and the thunk of them hitting decaying meat, as Sasi looses away.

She’s more concerned, however, about the lumbering crippled Dead monster which is still trying to kill her. She vaults off its shoulders and runs, trailing Echo in her wake...

... but down comes its barely-attached arm.

The arm descends... and slams into the earth, Keris flowing around it.

And then the ground explodes.

((A personal Charm of this thing is that its blows repulse the earth, causing an AoE shockwave when it dislodges the earth. Because of how much the living Earth hates its Dead form.))

Keris yelps, twisting acrobatically and pushing herself up and out of the way of the shrapnel with a powerful spring of her coiled hair. An explosion like this would probably be a problem... for a mortal, she thinks arrogantly as she springs on top of a lump of dislodged earth, leaping off it with a flourish. For her, though, it just makes things a bit more interesting. Earth rains down behind her, but she didn’t even get touched by it and its-

Echo playfully bounces through the mud and throws some at the back of Keris’ armour, where it splatters.

Shooting a peeved glare backwards over her shoulder at the wind-waif, Keris strafes left, circling back around out of the giant construct’s range and keeping a wary ear on the ghost controlling it.

It... still sounds rather upset. Rather a lot upset. Rather very upset indeed.  Keris watches the monster flee, oozing ectoplasm as it shucks the armour. It’s a vaguely man-shaped presence, but it’s only man-shaped. He’s really made out of ghostly vermin and bugs and maggots and leeches. Yes, lots of leeches with its leech head.

Oh no, she thinks. No, it’s not getting away. Not when she’s winning. Sprinting back towards the bonestrider, she bolts up it in a blinding streak of silver and leaps, bringing her spear around and through the mass of vermin in a textbook perfect _Cobra Closes the Hood_.

... well, apart from it being in midair while spinning and she has no proper base and okay, it’s not _textbook_ , but it’s still as close to perfect as she can get it, which is pretty damn perfect by anyone’s standards.

Keris’ feet flash against the ground. With a lunge she plunges her spear into its back. With a tattered howl the ghost erupts into green flame, burning like a candle flame in the night before it is but embers and ash, carried away in the sudden jets of excessive amounts of ectoplasm. It erupts from all the holes in its tattered corpus, spraying all over Keris and the surrounding area.

And like that, one of the Greater Dead is slain.

She inhales as she lands and spins to a halt, drawing the foul tasting essence in as breath. Behind her; devoid of its motive force, the huge suit of armour topples over with a resounding crash. With a hop and a jump, Keris stands atop it; a faceless golem with a curtain of silver billowing behind her; almost untouched by the devastation around her.

‘So,’ says Dulmea. ‘Are we going to speak about your performance there?’

“... oh hey listen to that I think I hear Sasi calling me I better go check all the lesser dead that went after her are gone too busy to chat right now maybe later sorry mama duty calls!”

Keris hurries off, ignoring Echo’s snickering.  Happily, she manages to not stand on a chrysalis and so doesn’t have a barb stabbed through her foot.

“Sasi!” she says happily as she arrives, because while Sasi might be annoyed, Keris is almost certain that she is not capable of being as icily intimidating as Dulmea in full-blown scolding “you screwed up in stealth and now I’m going to go over everything you did wrong” mode.

To be honest, very little is.

“I can report that the giant leechy monster is dead, and so are most of the lesser Dead things,” Keris continues. “I wasn’t hurt or even touched, except for Echo throwing some mud at me. Are you alright? And _what_ was that you hit it with? That was amazing! How do I learn it?”

“A display of Sapphire Circle Sorcery,” the pillar of darkness says, the full circle burning on its brow. “It is an evolution of the Death of Obsidian Butterflies, one of the most basic sorcerous spells that almost any skilled sorcerer knows.”

Keris glances back at the devastated hillside, the lesser Dead cut to bloody chunks of meat or impaled on spear-trees growing out of the ground, the ravaged and mutilated river-dragon and labyrinth-ore armour, the shredded trees and the bare earth whose topsoil has been cut clean through.

“... yeah,” she says, after a long, slow look. Her tone carries a wealth of skepticism along with a healthy dose of respect. “Basic spell. Right.”

“Now, dear,” Sasi observes, “I believe I told you to wait, did I not? Why did you decide to start sooner?”

Keris holds up a plate-clad finger. “You actually didn’t!” she points out. “You said you were going to scout around. You never actually _said_ ‘wait until I come back before silently killing all the people in the camp’. You just sort of... implied it. And I figured it would be quicker if I just got rid of them and all the Dead things in one go so we could move on and finish up here and... and go back somewhere more comfortable for you!”

It is amazing how an eyeless, featureless black pillar can glare quite so well.

The demonic, silver-clad, faceless golem tilts its head slightly forward, pauses for a moment, and then coughs in embarrassment. “Oh, sorry. Hang on.” Tapping the side of its head, the faceplate retracts upwards to reveal Keris, who ducks her head again, looks up through her lashes and assumes an apologetic expression.

“We still won?” she offers.

“That is not the point, dear,” Sasi says irritably. “Yes, things worked out here - but what if there had been some Dead Exalt here? Some solider sort just as powerful as you?”

((... rollin’ Valour 3. 1 sux.))

“I’d have been able to stab her to death and make her stop bothering us?”

“No,” Sasi says tersely. “I am thinking about the possibility that she might have had other allies, such as the forces of Thorns apparently have many Dead Exalts working together.” She sighs. “But at least that worked. Now, mop up the rest of the Dead and make sure there’s no one to tell tales, while I investigate the ship and consider how we’re going to get it out.”

Keris salutes, and heads out to cut off the rest of the Dead. Which has the added bonus that it needs enough concentration that Dulmea still can’t lecture her. Hah!

... admittedly, that means she’ll have calmed down enough to be more eloquent in her criticism later on, but that is a problem for Future Keris to handle, and which Present Keris can put aside in favour of cutting shamblers in half.

The Dead are rendered thoroughly... uh, dead.

Wow, she really needs to find the word for talking about what happens when she kills the Dead.

While Keris was being very busy and doing her mission and not being shouted at, she gets to listen to Haneyl’s excited babbling about how she got to burn all those ghosts and fire is the best and she’s sure they could think up lots of new things to do with fire and by the way Sasimana-mother is _so amazing_ and why can’t Keris do sorcery like that and Haneyl really wants to learn it!

“I’m pretty sure you can,” she encourages. “When you grow up. I mean, I’m sort of like an Unquestionable, with seven souls and all, and the souls of the Unquestionable can learn Sorcery, and I _think_ some of them can reach the Sapphire tier? So go for it!”

“... and I can do Sorcery. Just... not like that. But I still can! Like how I can move things into my Domain! You’ve seen me do that! That’s amazing too!”

“Well, I guess,” Haneyl says thoughtfully. “Only that didn’t involve lots and lots of glass butterflies killing _everything_ even better than Echo does.”

Echo disagrees with a rude gesture that silly butterflies were better than amazing Echo-ness at killing ghosts.

“Excuse me?” Keris asks indignantly. “Who killed the big leech thing? Was it me? Oh hey, yes, it was me. Look at that. I win.”

Only because Keris got there first, Echo protests with crossed arms and a pout. Maybe she should let Echo go places first! Then she’d see!

“If you can run faster than me, you can try to go places first,” Keris smirks. “Now settle down and hush, I’m meant to be hunting Dead things. Hmm. Though I think I’ve got them all. Dulmea, can you-”

Too late, Keris remembers that she’s supposed to be keeping herself too busy to talk to Dulmea in more than single-syllable replies. Dammit, Past Keris! Why did she go and do something as stupid as that? Now Dulmea’s had time to turn her mad from a big uncontrolled force into a really precise and cutting one! Stupid Past Keris, stupid!

Fortunately, it’s at that moment that Keris hears Sasi calling for her and she needs to go see to her right now.

“Behold,” the figure of Sasi says, gesturing down at the ground. “Oh, my apologies. You can’t feel it. But the interesting thing here is that the vessel is intact. It’s filled with air. And I just took a look down there.” Sasi gestures with long thin shadow limbs to a very narrow hole next to her. “I just dug that with my mind hands, and oozed down. The seals are intact. I’ve always heard that High First Age yachts were submersible. And we, Keris dear, appear to have found the royal yacht of An Teng - intact.

“Maybe,” she adds thoughtfully, “the tales weren’t entirely accurate. Maybe they were meant to come back for it. The so-called loyal man didn’t kill himself out of honour, perhaps. Maybe he just died from something else.”

“... intact, you say,” says Keris, her eyes lighting up. “Then if you get me down there, I can get it out. Intact and whole.”

Sasi tilts her shadow-head. “Can you go immaterial?” she asks.

“... no. Well, not like that. I can sort of pull apart into wind when something tries to kill me, but that only lasts a heartbeat.”

Sasi flows slightly downhill. “Then I’ll have to dig a shaft,” she says. “It should be doable in an hour or so. It’s about fifteen yards down at about a forty five degree angle, and I can transmute the shaft walls to stone. It should work quite nicely.”

The full green circle that Keris secretly likes because it means she can see where shadow-Sasi’s head is brightens slightly. As she watches, dirt starts spewing out of the ground, stops for a moment, and then there’s a crude start to a stone-walled tunnel.

Unfortunately, that leaves Keris an hour to face her mother.

Dulmea is, to say the least, Not Pleased. Keris - somewhat reluctantly - womans up and faces her tongue-lashing like an Exalt. It’s not the fun kind of tongue-lashing that involves Sasi. It’s the kind that involves her being sat at a table in Dulmea’s tower - and there’s a distinct difference between sitting and _being_ sat by one’s mother - and being made to go through, in detail, everything in the engagement she did wrong.

There is glaring when she leaves things out. There are no hints at what they are. This means that Keris has to do quite a lot of guessing before Dulmea is satisfied. Truly, her mother is an unrelenting tutor in those areas she considers herself qualified to teach.

“... and... running up the armour and jumping off the top to come down on it was... wasteful and flashy when I could just have run past it to outpace the ghost and kept my footing on the ground,” Keris eventually finishes, about forty minutes later. Dulmea raises The Eyebrow, and she backtracks hastily. “Should! Should have just run past and kept my footing. And maybe used slingstones to slow it down.”

“And?” Dulmea asks. Apparently she’s learned to banish the children from this part of the domain, which is something Keris has mixed feelings about. It would have been nice to have Rathan to distract her, but she’s feels Echo or Haneyl would certainly use this against her.

“Uh...” Keris runs through the engagement for approximately the eleven billionth time in her head. What had she done after killing it? Inhaled it... that can’t have been it... gone to talk to Sasi- oh, right. “I shouldn’t have gone off to talk to Sasi instead of listening to you right then?”

Stupid Past Keris. That was her fault, not Present Keris’s! And she knew what she was doing when she did it, the bitch.

Dulmea sighs in a very distinctly disappointed way. “We’ll talk later. Go see what Lady Sasimana is doing, and whether her tunnel is done.”

“Yes mama. Sorry mama.” Head hanging in shame after the rather brutal ego-pummelling, Keris rises back up into the waking world, blinking a few times and massaging the back of her neck.

It’s just past midnight, and the tiny sliver of the moon is all the light there is until she returns to the area where the glowing green illumination of Sasi shines out of the tunnel. It’ll be a tight fit, but Keris is very limber and should be able to squeeze down.

Oh yes, and she’s also short. She’ll fit. Especially with her hair to spider-crawl along on.

“Is that you, dear one?” Sasi calls back up from down there.

“Yes,” Keris replies. “I’m coming down - is the tunnel finished?”

“Yes. I got up against the deck entrance here, and I can turn the hatch lock from the inside,” Sasi calls back up.”

Keris squirms down, and finds herself on a tiny open space where Sasi is pressed against the walls as shadow. Under the dirt and the filth Keris can see white and gold and incredibly ornate decoration, carvings within carvings within carvings. She wishes she could make things this beautiful.

“Oh,” she says softly, reaching out almost involuntarily to stroke it. “ _Oh_. Oh, pretty thing. Pretty, _pretty_ thing. Sasi, we don’t need the boat, right? Just the things inside it. I can keep the boat? Right? Please?”

“We’ll see,” Sasi says. “I can also see quite a bit of use for this royal yacht.” Her voice is tense as she adds, “There’s no way those disgusting Lintha are being let near something this beautiful, either way.”

And with that said, she flows up to the hatch. She’s humming to herself, and Keris hears things clunk and whir from within the door. It... it unfolds, like an opening flower, with a stench of stale air. Fortunately neither Keris nor Sasi in this form need to breath, but they are the first to witness this place in two thousand years.

There’s old stains on the walls. Old stains that were probably once red. And disorganised bones by this doorway. The mixed remains of several bodies, still dressed in their finery and jewellery. The walls are gold and white, covered in abstract representations of flowers, and there’s a faint glow from within that becomes stronger as they near it. It feels like sunlight on Keris’ face, and Sasi hisses and recoils, hiding behind her lover.

Keris squints and bares her teeth, flaring her caste mark against the burn. She summons one of the blades of Ascending Air with a flick of her wrist and edges forward, probing the gloom with the bone-porcelain blade. Her hair spreads, providing a curtain for Sasi, and her armour’s faceplate snaps down again to shield her.

With a hiss of annoyance, Sasi sheds her shadowy form and becomes the usual beautiful woman she normally is. But... which one is the real Sasi, Keris finds herself wondering? Sometimes she seems more comfortable as the light-hating shadow.

Sasi binds a thin cloth over her eyes, and advances slowly, clearly feeling out every step before she takes it. There are more bodies - but not in the corridors. No, they’re seated or they’re in the beds. The only bodies in the corridors are the ones by the exit. Everything in here is fresh and beautiful, save for where the bodies lie and old rot happened. There are artworks hanging from the walls which haven’t been touched in... since everyone here died.

Sasi follows the signs to the armoury - but this place has been stripped bare. Whatever happened here left no weapons for the people left in here.

“What do you think happened?” she asks Keris softly.

Keris looks around, lips pursed, and licks a couple of the bones. She’s not expecting much after two thousand years, but it might at least answer one or two questions. Poison, perhaps? Though the bloodstains seem to suggest otherwise. She scans the walls for any signs of a fight; of blows gone awry or damage done to the walls or floor.

((Reaction+Investigation=5+1+2 stunt+2 Coadj=10. And, uh. 9 successes. Wow. 22 for what killed the bodies she tasted.))

Keris frowns. She can’t taste poison in the bodies. She can’t taste much, really. Barring the old blood - but even that, that’s not poisoned.

Deprivation. Bad air. No air.

She exhales. “Oh. No air. So... the people in the beds. They lay down to die. The people at the door were trying to get out. They... they weren’t left weapons. They were locked in. Left to die.”

She shudders. She’s used to having air - or to not needing it, which is sort of the same thing. The thought of slow suffocation... it’s not a pleasant one.

“The queen...” she continues, slowly. “Would she have been trying to escape, or waiting for the end? Where will we find her? And,” she turns, scowling behind her faceplate at the sunburn glow, “ _what_ is _that?_ It feels itchy and horrible and annoying.”

“This place,” Sasi says, disgust in her voice, “is lit with pure Solar essence. You think you’re not enjoying it? It really doesn’t like my powers from the Dragon. If you read between the lines, the High Queen of An Teng was a title the Solar lord gave to a descendent. A sumptuary title for children of the real rulers. And that meant that they got spoilt and were given the very best. This is the kind of vessel one of the First Age Solars might have taken for pleasure cruises.”

She leads Keris through to a grand open area, with skeletal dead trees which turn to dust when Keris brushes against one. “So here in... maybe an eating area, they had what look like fruit trees growing inside. On a boat. And...”

Sasi fades away. Her eyes, just as Keris’, fall on the shining gold robe and crown worn by a body which could be alive.

“She’s still warm,” Sasi says quietly. “I can’t feel a heartbeat. But she’s still warm.”

No. No heartbeats on the ship, Keris agrees.

Circling round, Keris approaches the body, stepping carefully over the bones of the High Queen’s retinue. She’s almost graceful in how she lies. She could almost be asleep.

Crouching down next to her, Ascending Air’s blade resting lightly on the woman’s throat, Keris gently touches the long-dead woman’s shoulder with an armoured gauntlet. A tendril of silver-coated hair comes round to lick her throat, sampling the taste of her.

She even tastes fresh. And when Keris rolls her over, warm guts spill out from under her robes and a still-bloody knife falls from her hand.

“Oh,” Sasi says faintly.

“Do you need her for anything?” Keris asks softly, her faceplate lifting. “Really, really badly, I mean? Anything crucial?”

“There were rumours that the robes of the High Queen kept her young and beautiful for more than her allotted span of years,” Sasi says. “I suppose a Solar lord or lady would want that for their favourite daughter. And that magic seems to ensure she left a young and beautiful corpse.” She shakes her head, clearing those thoughts. “When the Dead are also looking for this, we should not risk offending their ghosts,” she says.

Keris nods absently. “You know I still have Yamal?” she says quietly. “And the ambassador. I don’t use up every body I inhale. Some of them I keep safe inside me.”

She arranges the High Queen’s body to lie more comfortably. However old she’d actually been at the time of her death, she doesn’t appear to have much more than a decade on Keris, if that.

“She might have been a Solar’s child, but we were Solars, back then,” she muses aloud. “And if anything of her - or of them - is left, I don’t think they’d want to see her body turned into some... some hungry, walking monster. Or used as a thing to ride by some clever-tongued thing that would speak through her lips and use her face.”

She nods more firmly, and traces a thumb across the woman’s cheek. “I’ll keep you safe and undefiled,” she tells the body. “I promise. And I’ll make a sacrifice for your spirit. A painting of you, maybe. The Tengese would probably like that.”

Keris gives the woman one last careful look, fixing her in her memory, and inhales. It’s like drinking Yamal and Rosseah - somehow, the sheer ancient weight of the life translates to an indescribably rich and complex taste - or maybe that’s just the Essence in the ribbons; the remnants of someone who had been more than merely mortal.

((kerisss))  
((noooo))  
((don’t bear the heir to the throne of an teng))  
((whose father was the last legitimate high queen))  
((...))  
((Uh, well, the child wouldn’t be legitimate under Tengese law.))  
((Look, it’s a choice between her or a bunch of inbred nutjobs.))  
((... I mean, Sasi could make it a legal marriage under the law of Cecelyne, as a priestess of the Endless Desert with the capacity to make laws.))

The empty robe collapses, the knife falls to the ground and the High Crown of An Teng tinkles on the floor. Keris picks it up. It is, indisputably, one of the most gorgeous pieces of art she has ever seen - and that includes the yacht she’s standing in. She spins it briefly around an armoured finger, then makes it disappear. Safe, for now, in the care of Dulmea herself.

“Dulmea has it,” she reassures Sasi. “Not even the snake would try and take something direct from her. Besides, it’s me, so it’s probably going to avoid her and sulk for a while after that, um, lecture she gave me. But it’s probably safer with her than out here.”

She looks around. “The rest of the barge, though, I can just drop in one of the docks. You’ll need to be outside. I can’t do this if there’s anything living onboard; it won’t go through the cloud-wall.”

“No,” Sasi disagrees. “First thing is, we ensure that none of the corpses here will rise. Then I see what condition it’s in. And then we get some rest and take a look at things in the morning. It’s far too late to be doing something like this, and I’m exhausted after the Sapphire Circle spell.”

“I can inhale the rest normally,” Keris suggests. “That should stop them rising if they haven’t already risen, I think. And...” she glances around, “I think we’d know if they had. They wouldn’t have been able to get out; they’d still be in here.”

“They might still rise if we accidentally profane their graves,” Sasi says. “And I don’t want to find what would happen if it happened in your soul,” she adds.

“... thank you,” says Keris after a moment, a little queasily. “Thank you so much for that image. Really.” She shudders. “Alright, ensure they won’t rise first. Then... honestly, once we’ve made sure of that, we could probably sleep down here. Especially if you blocked off the tunnel again at the top.”

Sasi nods. “Yes. I can seal the door again - and yes, dear one, open it again.” A little smile creeps onto her lips. “And curiosity means I am wondering as to what the High Bed of An Teng is like.” She pauses. “... unless someone died in it, in which case I can pass.”

“We can check that first,” Keris smiles; well accustomed to Sasi’s decadent streak. It’s not exactly a hardship to endure. “And I’m sure there’ll be others if it’s not suitable.”

“Very well,” Sasi says. “One last thing, dear one. Let’s just keep this as our... little secret for now, yes? No one finds out. This means a lot to me. You tell noone of it, without my permission, for a month. Not even the Unquestionable. Can I ask that of you, dear one?”

Keris feels a gut tug, and knows very bad things will happen if she tells anyone.

“I don’t have any orders concerning the High Queen or the crown, Sasi,” she says, wide-eyed and innocent. “My orders from the Althing are all about trade. And the Shashalme just wants me to start cults for them. I’m sure a little discovery like this isn’t something to bother anyone with.”

She pauses. “Also, they might take the barge away. And I really, really want the barge.” She grins. “So yes. Our little secret.”

Sasi’s eyes water with utmost honesty. “I feel so bad about having to ask this of you,” she whispers. “I just can’t risk Ululuya finding out about this. If... if she’s... too cruel, I may need this to survive. To escape her. It could be life and death.”

Keris rushes to hug her, which would be a more comforting gesture if she wasn’t entirely clad in demonic silver armour. “Hey, hey,” she murmurs, “it’s okay. It’s okay. You know I’ll help you. You don’t need to feel bad; I _want_ to help you. I love you.” She squeezes gently. “Now come on. Let’s deal with these bodies, and then find somewhere to get this armour off me so I can prove it.”

“That would be nice,” Sasi says, wiping her eyes.

((Extra XP for a major accomplishment.  
FOUND THE ROYAL YACHT OF AN TENG))


	31. Chapter 31

The royal bed of An Teng has seen its first use in over a thousand years. It remains as self-indulgently decadent as it ever was, although it appears the ‘massage’ function has run out of power - that, or neither Keris nor Sasi know how to turn it on.

They’ll live.

So now Keris is having a little naptime to dream peacefully and-

“Child,” Dulmea says, almost bodily dragging her out of her sweet dreams of chasing down giant apples and eating them with her hair. “We have quite a problem. The robes of the long-dead Tengese queen are missing.” She pauses. “And the crown, too.” She seems to have forgotten about her anger at Keris in exchange for fretting.

“Mmm?” Keris murmurs happily, still floating midway between Sasi’s arms, an apple bigger than she is and Dulmea’s worried face. “‘Kay. Tha’s good.”

A second or two passes before Keris doesn’t so much stop floating as plummet into awareness.

“ _What?!_ ”

“Precisely what I said,” Dulmea says, leaning over Keris with her hair writhing in agitation. “It was right there! And then Rathan started crying and I looked away and when I looked back it was gone!”

“How can it be gone?!” Keris yells, her own hair lashing out and knocking over a table. An empty one, fortunately. “It’s not like things can steal from-”

She pauses as her brain overtakes her words, and her face contorts briefly into the sort of disbelief that has overtaken angry on the emotional highway and is very much aware of what’s coming up behind it. The Grief-Choking Lance spins into her hand with a deadly whisper.

“That _fucking snake_...” she growls, already starting for the window.

“Child,” Dulmea says. “I suspected it at first, but notice how...” she looks for words, “... nothing apart from that table is broken. Last time it stole things, it smashed through the wall.”

Keris reaches the window, spins round with a dismissal on her lips, surveys the room and deflates somewhat. “... oh,” she says. “Uh... yeah, okay. Then...”

Several uncomfortable realisations choose this moment to make themselves known to her.

“... Mama, did you let the children know you had it?” she asks. Dulmea shakes her head. “But...” Keris continues, “I tasted the High Queen. And part of her clothes. And whatever took them was stealthy enough to hide right under your nose. And they were shiny and pretty and...” she sighs. “Worn by a princess. Queen. Royal monarch.”

It’s then that Keris notices that Echo is behind her, waving furiously. When Keris turns, Echo pulls a face at her because she’s sooooo silly for not seeing her earlier but Echo didn’t want to come close because the grown-ups are being shouty and loud.

Echo folds her arms, clearly indicating she has something very important to say and that Keris needs to ask her what it is she has to say because it’s very very important.

“... you have my attention,” says Keris, slightly annoyed about the ‘silly’ comment. “You’re also delaying me from going and holding Haneyl upside-down by her ankles and shaking her until the crown falls off, so make it quick. What do you have to tell me?”

Echo opens her mouth. Echo closes her mouth. Her expression clearly says that it’s not fair because she was going to be the one who said that Haneyl is sitting up a tree giving orders to her silly not-flying horsies and-and-and that she’s wearing the pretty shiny golden robe and the shiny golden crown which looks really silly on her because it’s too wide and she has to use her hair to stop it falling around her neck. Echo puts her hands on her hips and scowls at Keris for running everything by guessing before she could tell her! She perks up quickly, though, and wants to know if she can watch Haneyl getting in trouble.

Keris brightens. “Okay, _that?_ That is _really_ useful! Well done! Can you show me where she is so I can make with the holding upside-down and ankle-shaking?”

Echo nods enthusiastically, with an audible giggle, and gestures for Keris to follow her. She jumps out of the window, and lands among a gaggle of her wind-light girls, and her gesture makes them all break out into giggles too. She waves up at Keris, indicating that it’s this way. Keris puts the Lance away in favour of a brewing expression of maternal ire, and follows.

She finds Haneyl in the tree covered in faces-fruit, which has got even taller. Haneyl has also apparently hung lanterns that burn green from every bough, so it’s easy to find. It’s got quite a few of those big horses that Sasi rode around it, and they’re listening attentively to Haneyl explaining how now she’s the empress they need to do what she says.

Keris is, just barely, merciful enough not to humiliate her daughter in front of her court. She is still far from _happy_ , of course, and so the horses are left somewhat confused when a reddish blur passes across the branch and leaves a decided absence of their princess in its wake.

A fair distance away, Keris comes to a halt in the treetops, holds Haneyl up by the scruff of her neck for a moment longer to get the message across, then plops her down and folds her arms.

“Those,” she says, with narrowed eyes, “do not belong to you. And Dulmea was not happy to find them gone. She was rather upset, in fact. So, you can either have this conversation here with me, or we can go back to the city and you can have it there with me _and her_.”

“But... but they’re _mine_ ,” Haneyl wails, kicking and thrashing with all limbs and also her hair in the midst of a tantrum. “Mine! Mine mine mine!”

Keris picks her up by the scruff of her neck again and holds her out at hair’s length, which neatly serves to stop her from running away to sulk and also from hitting Keris, whose hair is longer. Pursing her lips and trying to imitate Dulmea’s “I am severely unimpressed” look, she waits for Haneyl to get tired and stop.

After all, she has to get tired and stop _eventually_. Right?

((How much does Keris personally want to own the robe and the crown / thinks they’re gorgeous and wishes she could keep them / etc?))  
((Temperance 2; FAIL.  
... a great deal.))

Apparently not. If anything, Haneyl seems to be getting louder and more upset as time passes. And then when Keris refuses to let go, she starts screaming at the top of her lungs. And also grows quite hot to the touch - which is nothing compared to how everything around her starts catching on fire.

“Gah!” Keris yells, and drops her.

This is, in retrospect, a mistake. Three things happen in quick succession. The first is that Haneyl bounces off the branch, falls sideways and drops like a log. The second, possibly related to the impact of the branch, is that she stops screaming and vanishes.

The third is that the branch just above the one Keris is sitting on seems to twist around in the wind and clouts her extremely hard in the head.  Down below, Echo pulls a face at Keris suggesting she probably shouldn’t have let go of Haneyl. Then she gets distracted and starts chasing green embers, until they’re swirling around inside her wind-body.

Clutching her head and muttering, Keris drops down to the ground and looks around. Quite a lot of the upper portions of the tree are now on fire. The sound of some very distressed horses is audible from nearby, looking for their princess.

Of Haneyl, there is no trace whatsoever.

Keris knows how good the little girl is at hiding - as good as Keris herself. And these are _her_ woods, and they are very big, and if she reacts like Keris suspects she’s going to, she’ll find a place to hide and sulk and stay there. And even Keris’s hearing can only usually pick her out when she’s moving.

In short, Keris probably isn’t going to see the crown, the robes or Haneyl again until her Seventh Soul is ready to be seen. Which might take a while.

... this might be a bit difficult to explain to Sasi, she thinks. Maybe... maybe just sort of _avoid_ that topic until Haneyl has calmed down and come out again. Yeah. That sounds like a plan. And Haneyl is _technically_ part of Keris, and she’ll be guarding them with her life, so _technically_ Keris can completely truthfully say that has them safely stowed away.

Hopefully, she won’t have to.

Keris wakes in the morning, feeling somewhat better. Hopefully. She and Sasi take advantage of the royal bed of An Teng a little more - okay, a bit more than a _little_ more - and it’s probably somewhat past noon when they reseal the boat in preparation for Keris moving it into her Domain.

It’s a good thing neither of them strictly need to breathe when Sasi is in her shadow form, because it turns out that creating a Kimberian lake underground has the nearly immediate effect of flooding the tunnel. However, despite one or two minor mishaps along the way, Keris does get the ritual nicely underway in good time, and commences bringing the yacht through the Cloud Wall with Sasi observing from a safe distance.

Sasi purses her lips. “I don’t like leaving it in there,” she says. “We should find a harbour to keep it in. Can you at least stop any of your souls taking it for a joyride?”

“I am nearly almost completely sure that Echo and Haneyl won’t be able to get the doors open,” Keris promises. “Probably. And even if they could, their joyride would go about six feet and then hit the end of the dock it’s in, which isn’t actually connected to any canals and is also surrounded by very thick walls.”

Sasi runs her hands through her hair. “Forgive me if that doesn’t fill me with confidence,” she says. “Now. Back to Lotus, I think.” She pinches her brow. “It’s the second of Descending Fire today, you know.”

Keris blinks. “Huh. So it is.” She giggles. “That means soon it’ll be Ascending Air again.” She flashes one of the blades for a moment, grinning cheekily.

“Keris, we have fewer than two weeks left until we should set off for the City,” Sasi says darkly, squinting in the morning sunlight. “This is no laughing matter.”

Keris cocks her head. “Hmm. Point. Actually, in that case, do you think you can get back on your own? I have a few things I need to tie up here in the Middle Lands - the Red Mountain family could use another visit, for a start, and I want to make sure the Catalyst is still secure.” She pauses. “Or show it to you?”

Sasi considers, and nods. She swings up into the saddle. “I have this handsome fellow,” she says, stroking the demon’s willow-frond mane. “I have some things I really must get done - and so do you,” she adds. “It would be best to devastate some fleet or something which you can present to the Althing as an achievement, given over the course of this year you have sunk... one convoy.”

“Yeah. Catalyst and the Red Mountain family first; that’s just a quick check-up. Then I’ll come down and find a big fat easy target to wreck havoc on.” Keris gives Sasi a quick kiss. “Love you. Be safe.”

Sasi reaches down and gives Keris a slightly awkward hug. “I love you,” she says softly, and her hug suddenly becomes so much warmer and more affectionate. “I’d do anything for you. Would you do the same for me?”

“... of course I would,” Keris says, slightly confused but hugging back all the same with a happy little sigh. “Why? Do you need me to?”

“I’m just worrying about Calibration,” Sasi says quietly. “I have my problems, and you have - dear, dear Keris - rather neglected your own mission, though your work for the Shashalme will no doubt give you some measure of safety against allegations of impropriety.” She kisses Keris. “I worry, you know? But knowing you’ll always be here for me makes the worries fade, for a little while.”

“It’ll be okay,” Keris says, with the certainty inherent to those still young enough to think themselves invincible. “It’ll be fine. I promise.”

They remain in a comfortable silence but slightly awkward hug for a moment longer; neither entirely willing to disengage, before the baby kicks a couple of times and jolts them apart. Despite the disappointment, Keris’s lips twitch.

“Sorry, sorry.” She drops a quick kiss to the curve of Sasi’s stomach. “Goodbye to you too, little princess. I’m very sorry for only talking to your mama and not you. I’ll see you both soon!”

Sasi smiles. “I hope she’ll be less troublesome than the Lawkeeper,” she says. “She’s also decided that she’s my daughter - and changed her appearance to make it clear. She’s... a very prim little lady.”

“We’ll have to set her up on a playdate with Haneyl,” Keris returns. “I’m sure they’d get along great. Or, you know. End up screaming at each other. One of the two.” She looks up, judging the angle of the sun. “Okay, I really should get going if I want to make White Bridge Rising Over Water in time to get a good look at how they’re doing there. Love you!” She blows a kiss at Sasi and begins jogging back towards the river, turning to look back just before entering the trees at her lover turning her own steed back towards Lotus.

Sasi isn’t making as good time as Keris, even when her demon breaks into a gallop. Still, at least that’s something.  Sliding into the water is a welcome relief, and Keris puts thoughts of Calibrations and crowns and convoys out of her mind as she heads up to see her cult and the Catalyst.

... though she may be smiling a bit at the unintentional alliteration as she goes.

The lands of the Grey Owl barony haven’t changed, even though everyone there is now infected with Keris’ Haneyl-seeds. Well, unless anyone has moved in recently, or any children have been born.

Megadaca, the leader of the demjen, has good news for Keris when she arrives, though. “One who serves the priestess of the Desert,” she says to Keris, “we have found several rich seams of copper here. This place is lacking in metals compared to the City, but there are some. We have inspected them and it would seem that they are under an existing flooded old mine. We have managed to dig through into the flooded mine and have mapped it out - that is how we found the seams that the humans had missed.”

“Excellent work,” Keris praises. “Just what I wanted to hear. Okay, keep looking to see if you can find anything else, but your main priority now can just be guarding the Catalyst Speaking of which, let me just check to see if it’s still going...”

She swims down - deep, deep down to the very bottom - and listens hard for the sounds of whatever mysterious mechanisms lie beneath the Shogunate-stone plug. Things haven’t changed. There’s still the background of muted noise and mysterious clanks. They seem to come in... in a pattern. A repeating one. Maybe there’s a wheel down there or something turning. Keris certainly remembers how much noise a squeaky cartwheel could make on Nexan streets

She surfaces, pats Megadaca on the shoulder, and moves on to White Bridge Rising Over Water. Here, she doesn’t reveal herself. Instead she watches, unseen and unheard in the shrine, as Joyous Raven goes through her rituals. Keris slips into the manor after her like a ghost and makes the rounds; checking in on the grandfather whose lungs she treated and taking in the general hum and buzz of the family as they settle in for the night.

Red Mountain Lanatu had the large wyldgrowth in his lungs removed, but Keris remembers that she left other bits in his body - and those are still there. The old man has retired earlier than younger members of the household, and Keris quite easily brushes a hair-tongue across his ankle to get a taste of his general condition. Yes, the other wyldgrowths are there - and one of them, the one down in his gut, is growing slowly. It’s bigger than it was before. The lung one was the problem - these ones taste just like the lung. It’s... it’s like bits of his lungs are growing where they’re not meant to be, because of the spreading wyld taint. It can wait, she decides, and moves on.

She doesn’t move far, though. In a stand of trees not far outside the town walls, Keris settles down to meditate and put her thoughts in order. She’s had an idea bouncing around for a while. Now would seem to be the time to put it into practice.

She begins, as always, by explaining it to Dulmea. It’s far from a coherent explanation, but her mother is more than used to this by now.

“So,” Dulmea summarises once she’s finished. “You wish to make a gift to the Shashalme. It wants An Teng, and so you intend to give it a miniature of such; made from Tengese earth and water. A model and a map that it can use to view what it would own at its leisure. Yes?”

Keris nods. “Basically. And that’s why I’m thinking an elemental. An earth one to make the soil move when it changes the map, see?”

Dulmea nods. “My former master, he had a wonder not entirely un-alike that,” she says. “It was a map of his domains, which tracked the weather systems by redrawing itself. Once I saw the Typhoon of Nightmares pass across, as a cloud of darkness.”

Keris shivers. “Okay. Hmm. So an earth elemental for sure, then. And...” she purses her lips, thinking. “Maybe a couple of air ones as well. For the... the knowledge of what things look like? So that it knows what shape to be.”

“Perhaps soil and water from the borders of An Teng?” Dulmea suggests. “Or perhaps hair from the rulers of this land? The women, that is - the ones who are meant to be tied to the land?”

“Hmm. I think I’d have to get hair from all of them to get all of the land, though,” Keris points out. “Or at least from the wives of the Princes, which... yeah, elementals sounds easier. Hmm. Though the borders... you think that would be enough?”

Dulmea spreads her hair. “I know little of the creation of wonders, child,” she points out. “Do you?”

Keris makes a brief attempt to run numbers and calculations through her head before realising that this is going about it entirely the wrong way. Putting Sasi’s vaunted equations aside, she considers the potential artifact as a living thing, weighs up what organs it will need to live, and goes with her gut.

“... yeah,” she decides eventually. “As long as I had something really stable to hold it together - white jade, probably; that’s earth-aligned - then yeah. It should be. An Teng knows itself; the sympathy from the materials should be enough for me to work out a way. It’s a...” she waves her hands vaguely, “Above and Below thing. Salinan stuff says that since the soil will be from An Teng, it sort of has everything Tengese already in it. Like how every seed from a tree has a whole tree inside it, waiting to happen.”

She opens her eyes. “Soil and water, then. Dig out some glass jars; that should do to keep it fresh and untainted until I can work it. I’ll get that first, then the elemental.”

Dulmea clears her throat. “I can find some jars easily,” she says. “Have... you thought about talking to Haneyl yet? She has... uh, set most of the swamp on fire and is refusing to come out.”

Keris squeezes her eyes shut. “Doing it directly didn’t work. She’s not giving those things up. I wouldn’t, if I were her.” She grunts in annoyance. “But she can’t just _keep_ them. Sasi will want to know where they are eventually.”

Tilting her head back, she sighs. “And I don’t think she’s going to want to talk to me. You know how well she can hide; I don’t have a hope of finding her in a burning forest if she doesn’t want to be found.”

Dulmea sighs. “Just remember, she needs you more than she pretends. She will feel acutely neglected if she feels that you don’t care about her.”

“I _do_ care about her!” Keris protests. “I just... I don’t know what to _do_ when she throws this sort of tantrum. I’m not Sasi, I haven’t-”

She stops, staring into the middle distance without really seeing anything. After a while, she closes her eyes and sinks into meditation.

“Okay,” she says, giving Dulmea a hug. “I think I... might know how to get through to her. It’ll mean a promise that hopefully I can keep, but...” she shrugs. “I’ve been making a lot of those recently. This one is one of the easier ones, even. Wish me luck?”

“... I am not entirely sure I like the sound of this, child,” Dulmea says.

“It’s fine,” Keris reassures her. “And, uh. Well, I don’t really think she’ll respond to anything else. So it’s also all I’ve got.”

On that note, she leaves the tower - and the city - and heads Swampwards. It’s even easier than usual to tell the Directions apart. She just has to look for the vast column of rising smoke.

Avoiding the burning areas - well, the _more_ burning areas - Keris follows her instincts until she finds herself near the tree of human-faced fruit again, and speaks loudly to the surroundings at large.

“As queen of the Domain, I’d like to talk to the princess of the Marshlands,” she says as formally as she can. If there’s one thing that Haneyl definitely likes, it’s her titles and her status. “Is her highness Haneyl willing to speak with me?”

The fire parts, sweeping side. Well, not entirely. There’s still one pillar of fire left. Haneyl is ablaze. She’s wearing the far, far too large golden robe as a cloak - with the arms tied around her neck - and the green fire dances over the gold. Her hair fans out around her in a burning halo and amidst that the crown sits. It really is too wide for her and it’s only being held up by her hair.

“Say sorry!” Haneyl demands of Keris. “Now!”

Keris waits for a second or two, to make it clear that she’s not doing it just because Haneyl _told_ her to. Once her point is made, though, she bows.

“I am sorry,” she says. “For dropping you. That was wrong of me; I’m meant to keep you safe. I’m sorry, Haneyl. I won’t ever let go of you like that again; I promise.”

Haneyl screws her lips shut in a pout and does her very best glare at Keris. It is... quite adorable by the lax standards of ‘little girls who are on fire’ - but then again it looks like Sasi’s pout, so Keris is pre-inclined to view it as adorable.

“Well,” she says, after some thought. “I guess I can forgive you. But only this once! And if you do it ever ever again you’ll be a liar as well as horrible! And you’re also not allowed to steal my crown and my robe because I’m the princess! You said so!”

Keris sighs. She smiles fondly as she does so, though. “You’re very pretty like that,” she murmurs, taking in the vibrant green and gold framing the pale porcelain and grey that Haneyl inherited from Sasi with an artist’s eye. “I’ll have to paint you for Sasi. She’ll like it.”

She isn’t entirely sure, but she thinks Haneyl looks a bit shyer at that. The glare certainly wobbles a bit more.

“The thing is,” Keris continues, in the same carefully gentle tone of voice, “you’re right that you’re a princess, sweetie. But that crown is the crown of a queen. A _high_ queen. Sasi was the one who found it, and I think she might want it back eventually. The robes not so much; I’m pretty sure she’ll agree you look very good in those. But she might need the crown. She might need the crown _really badly_.

“So here’s what I think we should do. You keep the crown and robes for now. You’re a princess; not a queen, but you can wear it as a way of learning proper princessing.” Keris raises a quick finger to stop Haneyl’s triumphant exclamation. “ _But_... if you’re a princess, then your mother is a queen. Both of us. And Sasi is more of one than I am, because she’s been posh and important all her life, and even in the Realm before she Exalted she was noble. So if Sasi asks for the crown, I’d like you to pass it up her, because she’ll probably need it very, very badly. And _in return_ ,” she stresses, “I will do my very best to get her to help make you a crown fit for a princess that you can help design.”

She fixes Haneyl with a steady look. “But you have to promise that you _will_ give Sasi the crown if she asks for it. How does that sound?”

Haneyl’s lip wobbles. And then she bursts into tears and the fire around her goes out, leaving her black and scorched. Even as she cries, a few fresh new flowers force their way out from the ground and among her hair. She just about throws herself at Keris, clinging onto her and crying uncontrollably.

Keris sighs. She forgets how young Haneyl is, sometimes. Not just in that she looks like she’s four. This might be the first time ever that someone has told her ‘no’. Like, ever. On the other hand, Keris had been planning to hug her however she’d taken it, so this really just cuts out the need for her to politely ask Haneyl to please stop being on fire so she can do so. Wrapping the little girl up in a hair-bundle, she carries her up a tree and seats them on a rather larger branch than last time.

There, with Haneyl still crying on her lap, she starts brushing out Haneyl’s hair with her own, whispering to her about how well her new robes suit her, and how proud she is of her for being brave and generous and forgiving Keris and not getting angry again. Haneyl only seems to be catching about one word in four at the start, but something in the gentle combing and the cuddling and the praise seems to lull her tears into a sort of shallow doze after a while.

Careful not to disturb her, Keris quietly orders a farisy to go to the city and tell Dulmea that things have been sorted out to general satisfaction and that things are, by and large, mostly not on fire very much.  Well, things are still on fire, but it’s burning out, leaving blackened earth across the swamp. And things are already regrowing.

Keris brushes her daughter’s hair. Echo is certainly Adorjani, and she hasn’t seen anything in Rathan that wasn’t from the Great Mother, but Haneyl is perhaps almost as much Malfeas as she is Metagaos. She really does seem to have an affinity for fire.

They stay there for a while longer, until Haneyl slips from a doze to a proper sleep; a tiny thumb finding its way into her mouth as her hair clutches the crown tighter. Keris carefully lifts her up and carries her back to her tree, where she nestles them both on a bough and hums quietly to herself. She may be sort of wasting time, but she wants to still be here when Haneyl wakes up, and it’s a nice opportunity to get a proper look at her daughter. She’s usually so active or stubborn that seeing her peaceful and composed and still like this is rare, and almost strange.

Haneyl is a delicate-looking little girl, all big eyes and fine bones. Her skin is usually just as pale as Sasi’s, but right now she’s a little bit totally covered in soot and burned things. Likewise, her long grey hair that has Sasi’s colour but which she inherited from Keris is totally filthy. There are flowers growing from it, but there’s also embers and little flickers of flame which still twist in it.

Her feet are, of course, bare. And totally black.

Keris runs a finger over her face. She has Sasi’s jawline, but her little nose is more like Keris’ own. And... and it’s nice holding her child like this. It really is nice. Even if she’s a little brat who just set most of a swamp on fire in a temper tantrum, Keris likes this. She can’t hold Echo this way, and Rathan is cool to the touch and a bit of a lump. But even despite the soot, Haneyl smells nice - like a woodland glade.

Keris debates trying to clean her of soot, but... well, frankly, Haneyl will probably just eat it all off her skin when she wakes up. Or have a bath. Either way, there’s no need to risk waking her yet. Haneyl squirms in her arms, wrapping her little arms and her hair and clinging closely onto Keris. She rubs her cheek up against Keris’ dress. She’s muttering something in her sleep. “Mine,” Keris hears. “Mine.”

Chuckling, Keris drops a kiss on her forehead. “And you’re my little princess,” she murmurs back. “Alright, you’re not going to be waking up for a while. I guess I can have a nap, too.” Leaning back against the tree, she adjusts Haneyl’s tied-together robe-cape to function better as a blanket, props her head between two branches, and drifts into a dreamless doze.

It’s just a cat-nap, and thus she wakes when Haneyl starts shifting around on top of her. Her daughter is awake, and still clinging onto her with both arms and her hair. She seems to be taking the chance to get in a lot of hugs. Her movement actually technically rolls them off the bough again, but this time Keris is rather more prepared, and just laughs as she keeps a solid grip on her daughter and the tree and lowers them easily to the next branch down.

Under the laughter, though... she thinks that Haneyl has inherited something else from her. She’s inherited the fear of being alone. Of not having anyone else there. That might be why she always seems to hang more around Dulmea and why she’s hugging Keris so tightly now. She is just little, after all. Maybe that’s even why she always wants more things. She should, Keris decides, make sure to spend some time with her every day, no matter what. Rathan, too, though admittedly Rathan has been somewhat harder to find since he worked out how to swim and also learned how boats work. Now seems as good a time as any to start.

“So, Haneyl,” she says easily, as though it were a normal conversation and her daughter weren’t clinging to her. “I’ve had a bit of an idea about something for the Shashalme - you remember you helped me work out how to sacrifice things for them before? And I think I might need your help in deciding if this one is a good idea or not. See, the Shashalme told me that they wanted An Teng, so I was thinking...”

She doesn’t let go of Haneyl as she lays out her idea, but she doesn’t talk down to her either. Treating the little girl like a mature advisor; like someone whose opinion Keris respects, she reasons, can only do good things for her happiness. And, well. Haneyl _does_ seem to think in similar ways to the Shashalme, a bit. Her opinion probably really will be helpful.

Haneyl pulls a face. “Well, it’s not _really_ the country,” she says critically. “But I suppose it’ll _do_. Especially if it’s pretty!” Her eyes light up. “Or if you had little trees growing in it! Really little ones! And they had teeny weeny fruit!”

Keris chews on a hair-tendril thoughtfully. “Tiny trees, huh. Hmm. I’m not sure how I’d... oh, wait! Wait, yeah. I could... yeah, I could have sort of... crushed leaves or something as well as the soil, and they could show where the forests were! More detail. Yeah!” She cuddles Haneyl close. “Great idea! Well done, Haneyl, thank you!”

Shifting the little girl off her lap to a faint mou of protest, she stands and stretches. “Okay, I should go and start gathering ingredients. And Haneyl? I know we said you can keep the crown and robes for now, but I would like you to go and say sorry to Dulmea for scaring her by taking them without her noticing.”

She pauses.

“... though you should also point out that you took them without her noticing from literally right next to her, so she can’t get _too_ mad at you because she’s always telling me off for _not_ being stealthy enough when I mess up. And that? That was amazing.”

Haneyl’s grin is a massive wide beam and she lets go of Keris and does a little curtsey, before wrapping her arms around her mother’s neck and effusively showering her with kisses. “It was, wasn’t it!” she says brightly. “I poked Rathan with my hair so he’d make noise so Dulmea-grandmother would look away and then I took it all when she wasn’t looking!”

Keris ruffles her hair. “You are a tiny terror,” she says fondly. “Alright, go tell Dulmea how amazing you are, and I’ll get started on finding those ingredients.

She opens her eyes, fading back into the world, and chews a hair tendril. The borders of An Teng. Right then. At the moment she’s, uh... in the Middle Lands. So! Eastwards it is!

It is a long three days. Technically, at Keris’s speed, a 500-mile round trip should only take half a day or so, but, well. Keris is not the best navigator in the world. And her old maps aren’t very helpful because, unsurprisingly, the borders of An Teng are different than they used to be.

This is very aggravating.

Still, she muddles through. She swims up past Adorned with Wisdom as a Sapphire and through the Thousand Dragons Lake; revelling in the crash of the falls that echoes through the vast expanse of water, and then further up past the Jade Plum Citadel. She gives the Pinnacle of Mercy a wide, wide berth, instead climbing higher and higher into the Firepeak mountains, until all of An Teng is spread out to the west of her and the villages have become tiny, hidebound, traditional things. It takes a few tries, but eventually she finds the point where her instincts seem to _thrum_ , and digs up an armful of the rocky soil to scoop into a glass jar, sealed with wax. A second is filled with the pure mountain streamwater; so clear and cold that it’s almost like liquid glass itself.

Then it’s back down the mountains and on to the south border. Keris has heard stories of the Serpents Who Walk as Men in her time in An Teng. It’s at the dead of night on the first, though, that she enters their domain, and she sees none. Finding the Southern border of the satrapy is a lot harder than the Eastern one, as there’s no evident marker, and it takes her most of the morning to determine the right point. Grumbling, she packages up the fertile soil in a third jar, and takes several handfuls of crushed leaves from the foliage to fill a fourth.

The Shore Lands are a welcome and familiar relief. She travels downriver and meets the sea with a whoop, following the coast until she finds the peninsula just south of Dragon Mouth Bay. Sandy soil from its western-most tip goes into jar number five, and another gets a seawater bath. She takes a nap on the ocean floor - a day and a night of running and working out where borders are is tiring for the mind even if the body doesn’t complain as much.

Finally, it’s northwards. This, she knows, will be the hard one. There’s no big culture up on the northern border; no obvious cut-off point. Just a lot of Middle Lands forest. Not only does she get lost on the way, only getting to roughly the right area at nightfall, but she spends most of the day running in circles. Eventually she loses her patience and finds a forest god, who after only a little bit of threatening and a demonstration that she can in fact punch him in the jaw is convinced to show her where the edge of the country lies.

Tired and grumpy, but with eight large glass jars of material, Keris turns roughly homeward and starts the long slog back home. The only thing she needs now is the elemental. And that can wait until just before they leave.

Sasi is of course already home, and she’s busy doing something in Steel Lotus that Sasi says is important. Pouting, Keris gets a good night’s sleep in, and then grudgingly goes and looks for shipping targets. Much as she hates to admit it, Sasi was right. She _has_ rather been neglecting what is, technically, her actual job here.

At least it’s a job she’s good at. Keris will never be as natural or at ease in playing politics or analysing economies as Sasi is, but enough of her lover’s lessons have stuck with her that she is very much aware of what organisations are weak to. If she’d known in Matasque what she knew now, she’d never have been taken by surprise at how the tainting of the rice fields had backlashed. And since she does know it now, she can see all kinds of interesting shipments that would hurt Realm interests very badly indeed to lose. Especially so soon after the last convoy.

The thought occurs to Keris that this is a harbour. There are lots of ships here, all tied up. And at night, no one is watching them that much. They can be cut - or sunk. Or have their masts shut down. Or... well, lots of things can be wrecked. Oooh! Or maybe she could see if she could play around with oil or firedust! She’s wanted to set fire to things to a while.

But failing that, she has some shipping records and locations.

The harbour seems funnier, though. And it’ll make people paranoid of it happening again. They’ll increase security on the docks at night, which will cost money. It’ll mean frequent checks and suspicion directed at people. She’ll have to make sure it’s not pointed at the misbegotten - or rather, that it _is_ pointed at someone else, since the Tengese will look unkindly on her kin no matter what. But it’ll slow things down, snarl them up, cause trouble. A gift that keeps on giving.

So it is that an unimposing man in the garb of the High Lands enters the docks a few nights later. He’s not obviously trying to hide - that, after all, would either draw too much attention or none at all, depending on how well he did it. But he’s brisk and is carrying a box and a coil of rope and seems to know what he’s doing. Those that notice him probably don’t think much of it past a second glance at the unusual nature of a Highlander down in the Shore Lands, soon dismissed.

It’s quite a good disguise, really. Inside the box are a lot of little vials of what look, on the outside, like expensive spices and drugs from the High and Middle Lands. Only quite careful examination, and possibly opening more than the one he shows to the only guard that asks his business, would reveal that the contents of most of them would not only be very bad seasoning, but are also highly flammable.

By the end of the night, every Realm ship in the harbour that isn’t on fire has several careful long slots cut just above the waterline. The wood is neatly plugged back in place, but with no glue holding it there, unpleasant things are in the future of anyone who loads the currently empty holds with cargo.

And while few people noticed the man on his way in, there are at least two guards who will have stories to tell tomorrow about a man in High Lands garb hurrying away from the developing fires, who broke two noses and an arm when they thought to ask him if he’d seen anything and vanished into the evening gloom.

Sasi seems slightly... put out when Keris gets back. Slightly put out in a pouty, Haneylian way. “Is something wrong?” Keris asks her.

“I would have appreciated some warning that you were going to set the harbour on fire,” Sasi says snippily.

Keris goes pale, sick horror coiling in her stomach. “You weren’t _there_ , were you? Were you hurt? I thought you were doing... posh stuff! Business deals and things!”

“I had investments there. With some warning, I could have divested myself of them,” Sasi says. “This was quite an expensive night.”

“Oh. _Oh_.” Keris sags in relief, which earns her another snippy look, but she’s too busy being glad that she didn’t accidentally expose Sasi to a burning harbour. “Okay. Right. Sorry. You seemed like you were working really hard on...” she waves her hands vaguely, “whatever deals and things you’re setting up.” A meaningful pause. “Which, you know, you’ve not really told me anything about. But, um... I didn’t want to bother you?”

Sasi sighs. “It’s fine,” she says reluctantly. “At least this will look like my interests were hurt just as much as everyone else’s. Now, however, I will have a busy day tomorrow. I have lots of loans to offer to people who’ve lost more money than me in this.”

Keris nods. “I have one or two more things to finish up in the Shore Lands. Oh, though! I was going to tell you; Haneyl had a very good idea for my gift to the Shashalme. Clever little girl.”

“That’s good,” Sasi says. She pauses deliberately. “And has the royal yacht been kept safe? And the robes and crown?”

“They’re all safe and fine,” Keris nods. “Rathan found the yacht, but the walls are too tight for him to get it out, so he’s just sitting on the pointy end and pointing at things. I think he’s pretending its on the sea and that he’s moving it, since he can’t actually get it there.” She thinks for a moment. “He did try chewing one of the railings and then threw a tantrum, but I’m not sure if that was because it tasted bad or just because he’s teething at the moment and does that every so often anyway.”

“... did he damage the railings?” Sasi asks quickly.

“He doesn’t even have many teeth yet, Sasi,” Keris points out. “No. Well, unless you count ‘covered in baby drool’ as ‘damaged’, but I cleaned that off while I was trying to get him to stop screaming. Is there anything you can do to stop teething toddlers from screaming so much, actually?” she adds. “You might know.”

“Beyond giving them something to teeth on, like rye biscuits - no, honestly. They grow out of it in a few months,” Sasi says. She yawns. “I am going to have to get up disgustingly early to begin offering bridging loans before the merchant princes and House Ragara can get in,” she says. “I’ll talk to you about childcare later.”

“You head to bed early, then,” Keris advises, and doesn’t entirely relax until Sasi has retired. Lying to Sasi... well, not _lying_ lying, but not-exactly-telling-all-of-the-truth to Sasi is always a rather tense experience. And while Haneyl has technically agreed to relinquish the crown when asked to - or at least not thrown another tantrum over the suggestion - Keris isn’t keen to test her willingness to do so until she has to.

Meditating, Keris gives Rathan a hug and tries giving him some rice cakes she got from the kitchen. He seems to like them, even if it leaves his hair covered in crumbs. It gives her time to think about what to do next.  She needs to check up on the misbegotten, she thinks. And probably send a message to the Lintha to reassure Lintha Gajui Narooj that she’s still around and doing things - yes, she can claim credit for the harbour fire, and emphasise how it’ll make them weaker and more divided; easier prey for Lintha attacks. Then it’s just the elemental that she needs. Hmm. She’ll have to find someone who can tell her what sort of creature might suit her needs.

She sends the latter message immediately via Cherub Shrine - and that’s something else that’ll need repair; it’s still uncomfortably slow and stuttery. The next morning, she heads up the coast to Dragon’s Jaw to visit Darling Yellow.

The misbegotten shanty town is ablaze. Not literally with fire, but metaphorically with rumour. The docks are still smouldering and everyone is worried about what’s going on. Riyaah MuHiitiyah is waiting for her priestess in her shrine. Her expression is serious, though the sight of the old woman on her feet brings a brief smile to her face.

Darling Yellow falls to her knees before the goddess, and kisses her feet. “You have returned, blessed lady,” she says.

“You may stand, my priestess,” the goddess says, amused. “I gave you your feet back for a reason. You, of all people, need not kneel in my presence.” She rests a hand on the old woman’s shoulder. “What rumours have you heard of the harbour fire?”

The old lady wrings her hands together. “It is dreadful, wise one,” she says. “The fire has swept through the docks - and several warehouses too - and I fear there will be little work for some of my family for quite a long time. And what of the Realm? They’re going to tear this city apart looking for the culprits!”

Riyaah MuHiitiyah frowns. “A man from the High Lands was responsible,” she says. “His name, I cannot discover. As to work...” She frowns. “That is a problem I will need to solve. I will task one of my servants to gather food for you and your kin and leave it in a place you can gather it each day. How much will you need?”

It is a big question and it takes some time for her to think of an answer. She clearly doesn’t want to risk offending the goddess. “No matter what you can offer, we will be grateful,” she says carefully. “Whether you through your bounty see that food is left, or whether others who worship you can fetch us jobs, we will praise you.”

Jobs, Keris thinks. She... _could_ probably get Sasi to use one of her holdings to employ them. The issue is that this might possibly sort of let Sasi on to how Keris has made herself a little bit of a goddess to the misbegotten, and...

... well, Keris sort of wants to keep them for herself. It’s something she’s managed alone. Still... hmm.

“I will provide for my people,” she promises. “In turn, spread the knowledge of the true culprit. Rumours move quickly, and I’m sure there are many who would be interested to know of the one who did this. He was seen leaving as the docks burnt; I know that much. Turn the vengeful eyes of the Realm to the High Lands; far away from here.”

“That would no doubt be wise,” Darling Yellow says thankfully. “The Realm is not as cruel as most in An Teng, but it is hard and merciless.”

Riyaah MuHiitiyah nods. “Until later then, my priestess.” With a whisper of wind, she’s gone; fading from view into the walls of the shrine as though she were never there.

Half an hour later, out in the harbour, Keris sinks into meditation and gathers Rathan onto her lap. “Okay, sweetie,” she says. “We’re going to make something to catch fishies! How does that sound?”

Rathan screws up his face. “Fishies!” he says loudly.

Four hours of work later - well, actually four and a half due to some squabbling over what they were making and Rathan demanding to be fed fishes to get into a proper fishy-catching mood - a deva drifts on the currents in front of Keris. It’s humanoid, at least above the waist; a beautiful female with hair like jellyfish stingers and something in the set of her nose and jaw that reminds Keris of an octopus’s beak.

... though that may be because beneath the waist, the deva is, in fact, an octopus. Or possibly a squid. Six long tentacles twist and twine around each other, keeping the creature effortlessly still in the slowly moving water.

“You understand me?” Keris asks. The creature - the sellou - nods. “Your task for now is fishing,” Keris continues. “Catch as much as you can each day without exhausting yourself. Leave it on the shore in...” she pauses. “Hmm. Let me show you where.”

It takes ten or fifteen minutes, but Keris is able to find a place near where she gave her speech, where a small river meets the sea that will give the sellou access. There’s a wide, flat rock that it can pile the fish on, and Keris carefully piles quite a few more rocks up around and on top of it, forming a concealed little shelf whose contents won’t be visible to anyone who doesn’t know to look for them. After some thought, she covers the back half with sand. There. Now it just looks like some half-buried rocks.

“Don’t be seen,” she orders the sellou. “Leave your catch an hour before dawn. And...” she touches it on the shoulder. “Be safe.”

That done, she allows the deva to jet off into the harbour, leaves a flower on top of the rocks so that her worshippers will be able to find the place, and returns to the shanty town to tell Darling Yellow where to look.

She is effusively praised for her beauty, kindness and generosity.

((... but she flubbed the roll and only got 1 success of praising))  
((Tch. Worshippers these days. So ungrateful. : P))

Keris returns to Sasi with mixed feelings - she’d at least managed not to throw suspicion on the misbegotten, but had also slightly sort of put them out of work, which she’d definitely not intended.

“Sasi?” she asks once they’re both home. “Can I... ask a sort of favour? A little one.”

Sasi has ordered Realm-style food for tonight. She only usually does that when she’s had a hard day. Still, Keris appreciates the break from food which sets your mouth on fire. Sasi folds her hands in front of her. “What is it, dear one?” she asks.

Keris gestures harbourwards. “I, uh. Realised today that it wasn’t just you I accidentally hurt with the dock fire. A lot of the misbegotten worked there, and now they don’t have jobs or work... or food. And they had a lot less they could afford to lose, so now they’re in trouble. Is it... would it be possible for some of your businesses to find work they can do? I know the Tengese don’t like them, but they _really_ need it, and it’s... it’s my fault.”

Sasi looks at her consideringly. “What do you have to gain?” she asks. “When did you start associating with them such that you could ask such questions of me?”

Keris looks at her flatly. “They’re people without families,” she says bluntly. “Who lost their parents - one way or another - and who live on the streets. Of course I associate them with... look, I haven’t got anything to _gain_ , I just... I don’t wanna be the reason they’re in hard times.”

Swirling her tea, she looks Keris up and down. “Are they worshipping you?” she asks teasingly, but with an edge to it.

“...” says Keris. “I, uh. May have been helping a few of them out. A little.”

“I thought as much.” Sasi tilts her head. “I suppose I can spread a few words and suggest that they hire them as day labour - as they are cheap, after all. Is that what you want?”

Keris brightens, hugging her. “That’s perfect! As long as they’ve _got_ work; that’s great. All they need is a fair chance. Thank you thank you thank you!” She feels the nagging sensation she sometimes does that this will leave her in Sasi’s debt, but shrugs it away. Sasi _is_ doing her a favour, so doing something back for her is fair enough. Besides, it’s not like she doesn’t sort of enjoy most of the stuff Sasi asks her to do. Right?

Sasi pats Keris on the arm. “I’ll do what I can, but there isn’t much time left to us,” she says. “We’ll need to leave soon for our new year holiday.”

“Right. What day are we leaving, exactly?”

“I was planning a departure for the fifteenth or so. We have to find the route, then five days travel, then we have to get to that place across the City too. It adds up. And I’d rather not be late.”

Keris purses her lips. “Three days. In that case, I’ll go find my elemental tonight. Better to have it early and keep it caged for a few days than to risk being late.”

“Yes,” Sasi agrees. She rubs her eyes. “I need to get up again early,” she says reluctantly. “I’m bathing then going to bed. Good night, dear one.”

“Night, love.” Keris kisses her goodbye, and heads out. What she needs, she decides, is some sort of... of library, maybe. Somewhere she can look up common types of elemental in An Teng and find what she needs. Or, failing that, someone to ask. Sasi has a library, she remembers. Maybe she might have relevant books!

Keris sneaks in and has a look through them. Hopefully, she thinks, these are not the kind of Sasi-book that appear to be completely blank to everyone except Sasi.

Oh, that’s convenient, Keris thinks. She finds a copy of ‘A Discourse on The Elemental Spirits of An Teng’ in among Sasi’s books on elementals. Gosh, it’s really useful how she keeps this place organised.

Keris happily flips through, looking for elementals that deal with moving earth and soil around. She wrinkles her nose as she notices the slag-heap centipedes, which apparently aren’t usually almost the size of an entire _hill_ , but discounts them in favour of more useful creatures.

It takes a little while, but she eventually hits paydirt. Mole-worms! The picture looks a little odd, but the description sounds perfect. Apparently they tend to form around pockets of Air essence trapped underground and try to dig it out; causing pitholes and cave collapses. Keris snaps the book shut, replaces it on its shelf, and ponders where she might find some. Caves, caves... air underground. Hmm. She doesn’t really have the time or materials to make such a thing herself, so she’ll have to see if she can find a likely place on her own.

... there were, it occurs to her, quite a lot of empty spaces beneath the ground back in Nexus. Lotus probably isn’t _quite_ as built-on-top-of-itself as the hub of the Scavenger Lands, but it’s still be around for quite a while. Right?

“Firisutu?” she whispers. There’s a brief pause, and then a weight settles into her hair. “Hey, there you are. I need your company and your help in finding something. How do you feel about making a bunch of nests around the city tonight?”

Firisutu chirrups happily, and squirms out of her hair.

The next dawn that rises on the City of Steel Lotus will illuminate several strange structures around the city, along with an unfortunate pet parrot that Keris wasn’t quite fast enough to stop Firisutu from stabbing when they passed through a garden with an aviary. Pieced together from scrap and junk, something in their construction of the curious piles of clutter nonetheless hints at the surrounding city.

One in particular, to those with a certain frame of mind and a willingness to examine it closely, would hint that some way beneath the granary whose wall it shares is a largeish empty space; perhaps a forgotten cistern or a natural cave.

Dawn, however, is still some hours away, and for now Keris grins in triumph. “Finally,” she hisses. “Great work, Firi’. Okay, be as quiet as you can, I’m gonna see if I can hear anything interesting.” Lying flat on the ground, she places an ear to the base of the wall and listens hard.

It’s very faint and distant - barely audible under the noise of the pre-dawn city and all those sleeping people and _urgh_ the rattle of carts. There might well only be one of them in the entire city, close to the temple district. Still, it’s worth looking into.

Keris tracks it down to what she thinks is probably a debris-choked well, in a reverence garden for the bamboo gods.

She now has a problem. Namely, how to get it out of the ground. She listens again, trying to estimate how deep it is. It doesn’t sound very large, but it’s only maybe five yards down - possibly just at the bottom of the debris plug.

Humming cheerfully, Keris motions Firisutu off her hair and lets it run dark green with a coat of painless, soporific poison. Very carefully and very quietly, she lowers herself down the well; holding herself in place with hands and feet on opposite walls, until she’s just above the plug.

Then, in an explosive motion, her hair surges down, punching through the bamboo and debris, and grabs.

((Physique + Athletics))  
((5+5+2 stunt+2 Metgaos ExSux {ruthless acquisitions, no escape, someone else’s expense}=12. Oh what the fuck, _2_ +2=4? 4? I was expecting 8!))  
((Dice fairiiiiies!))

Keris thinks she bruised her hair doing that. She clearly didn’t hit in the right place, because she managed to slam into a solid bit of discarded wood that apparently has turned into _stone_ or something. Underneath, the thing startles, squirming down with a patter of wet-sounding claws down the rotting brick lining.

“Oww,” she hisses. “Dammit dammit dammit!” She frantically claws debris out of the way. “Get... back here, you little... come _here!_ ” She makes another, more careful grab, using her hair’s sheer length to sneak tendrils through and cut off its route downward. All she needs to do is touch it.

Keris’ hair squirms through the plug, sometimes as little as one strand going through the tiniest slit, and something that no human could ever get through is suddenly permeable to her. It fights and it bites back and it gnaws at her hair, but if they can weaken stone and rock - well, hair isn’t stone and rock.

Eventually, after nearly twenty seconds of thrashing as she holds it pinned, it goes limp.

... and Keris realises her hair is now holding something on the other side of rock and stone. Which hurts. Quite a lot. And now she has to work out how to get it out.

This dilemma is at least easier now that she doesn’t have to worry about her target getting away. Drawing Ascending Air in the cramped wellshaft is difficult, but the bone-porcelain blade slices easily through mere rock and stone, and Keris is able to slowly but surely carve out chunks of debris that she can shift to either side of her. The strain on her hair lessens as she gets deeper - possibly because she’s losing strands to her kris despite her care to avoid most of the tendrils - and eventually she’s managed to get within a few inches of the bottom of the plug.

At that point it’s just a matter of digging a careful hole big enough to extract the elemental with her hands, and getting up and out before the precarious pile of loose extracted rubble - quite a lot of which is now held up by her - collapses. A standing leap upwards gets her onto a wall, and then it’s a seven-limbed scurry up the vertical wall with one arm and two hair-tendrils holding the limp form tight against her as the plug falls in on itself below.

It’s barely more than a puppy now that she gets a look at it clearly. It’s perhaps a yard long, and very thin. If Keris has to guess, she’ll say it was recently formed. Parcelling it up carefully in a cloth and then holding it securely under her hair, she beckons Firisutu back onboard and heads back towards Sasi’s house, already considering what kind of cage to put it in for transport, and what kind of food it’s going to need on the way back. Rock and stone, maybe? She has to admit, she didn’t really pay all that much attention to what they ate in Sasi’s book. If they ate anything.

Keris amuses herself sinking a few more ships and stealing trinkets from the wreckage and giving them to Rathan to teeth on. He seems to like chewing on ship parts. Perhaps that means he has the temperament of a ship killer. Or perhaps he’s just a funny and very ticklish little boy.

But the few days until they have to set off again pass quickly.

Two agata fly them out from the city, the elemental dangling from one of the packs in a thoughtfully provided cage of Pyrian crystal that Sasi assures her it won’t be able to eat through. For now, Sasi is seated on one of them; having elected not to have Keris carry her until they reach the desert. It is, in fact, a wonderful flight, which is going absolutely perfectly until Sasi proposes a slight detour.

“I wish to take a look at the crystal you found underwater,” Sasi informs Keris.

Keris’s expression makes it abundantly clear of her feelings about going back to that place. If a picture is worth a thousand words, this particular expression could probably be translated into an epic saga. And not a happy one.

“Just take me there,” Sasi orders. “I’ll swim down myself, if you don’t want to go there again.”

The expression doesn’t change much, but after several pointed glares and another order, Keris reluctantly turns the agatae in roughly the right direction. The reason for her reluctance becomes apparent when they get closer.

“I don’t remember exactly where it was,” Keris explains. “You know I’m not good with directions. So in order to get us the rest of the way, I’m...” she wrinkles her nose and sighs, “... gonna have to dive in and track it by sound again. You owe me cuddling for this, Sasi. So much cuddling. Especially if it sticks in my head again.”

That said, still armed with a pout, she slips off the wasp and hits the water below - not without a little relief at getting away from the ear-pulverising wingbeats. Still, what she’s going _to_ is worse. Sinking deeper, she closes her eyes and trains her ears for the horrible never-ending scream.

A few minutes later, Sasi sees a wet blob of hair emerge from the waves, wave once and begin to move like a shark’s fin. She follows until it disappears, whereupon Keris comes leaping out of the water a good six yards straight upward and back onto her agata.

“Down there,” she says, shuddering. “Still screaming. Do not ask me to show you around.”

“That’s all I wanted,” Sasi says, briefly wrapping her fingers around Keris’ wet hair. She brings her agata down low, skimming over the water, and then orders it to stay. Then she melts away into inky shadow, slips away and is lost to Keris’ senses entirely.

It’s at this point that Keris realises she’ll have no idea of what’s happening down there.  This brings two contradictory urges into play. On the one hand, Sasi might be hurt by the... the _thing_. On the other hand, _Keris_ might be hurt by the thing, and also she wouldn’t actually be able to help if Sasi were being hurt by the thing on account of not being able to see or hear her because of _stupid cheating unfairness_.

It is a terrible conundrum.

((Valor 3; Diff 2. BOTCH.))

But, Keris decides, Sasi is more important than being a bit scared. Even if she can’t see Sasi as she _works_ , she can at least be there in case she... in case she screams for help or something. And then stab the crystal monstrosity. Alight with purpose, she dives once again into the water and enters the deep mineshaft.

She’s about halfway down when the screaming becomes properly audible; more than just a faint ringing tone, and...

... yeah, okay. Her memory had not properly captured how horrible it was. Not even close. Apparently, she’d forgotten out of self-defence. But now that she’s hearing it again, her heart is pounding and her hair and hands are trembling and she remembers the visions from last time a-and...

Keris inhales a mouthful of seawater in panic and screams. Her return to the surface is fast enough that she overshoots the agata by more than a yard, forcing it to veer wildly to catch her; crying and coughing, on the saddle again. When Sasi returns, it’s to find her still damp and dripping, curled up in a defensive huddle on the saddle and shivering violently in terrified silence.

((KERIS had PANIC ATTACK.))  
((It was super-effective. : ( ))

“Very interesting indeed,” Sasi says clinically. “And... what happened to you?”

Keris shakes her head mutely and curls into a tighter ball, wrapping her hair around herself protectively.

Sasi is bone dry. Apparently she managed to get up onto the agata in shadow form and then drop it and that somehow meant she wasn’t wet at all. It does mean that Keris gets a nice dry pair of warm arms wrapped around her that ease her onto Sasi’s agata. “There, there,” Sasi says reassuringly.

Keris takes the payment in cuddles that she demanded, and feels a little better.


End file.
